Usurper of the Throne
by Hikari M666
Summary: Vampire society has strict rules, but Sasuke thinks he's above them. When he inadvertently gets Naruto turned into one of them, though, his perfect 'life' takes a nasty turn. Suddenly Naruto, not Sasuke, is the important one, the one who will lead their society to power. How will Sasuke reconcile his raging jealousy with his attraction? SasuNaru and others.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: **Oh god, I've missed the Naruto fandom. So much. I hope nothing's changed!

I've been having such a huge kick of overdone story ideas - I want to take all the cliche plots that everyone's tried, and give them my own spin. I don't mind if I'm not 100 percent original, as long as I offer _something_ original. And I really hope you think I've delivered on that. I've spent a good deal of time making this idea of vampire-ness different from most. There's surprisingly little magic involved.

I was also, back when I started this, going through a bizarre phase of being obsessed with colour-blindness, which is why it's a rather large feature in this story. I almost called it _Blind_ because of it.

I've been dying to get this vampire fic out into the world; I started it pre-Twilight, would you believe. Then I kind of got sad because vampires were everywhere and I worried people would think I was trying to copy Twilight, or at least metaphorically cash in on it. Then, five years later, I realised that vampires are still freaking awesome and I want mine to be uploaded for all to see.

Sorry about the dodgy prologue. Exactly zero of the other chapters have this painful description-to-dialogue ratio. I love writing dialogue.

* * *

**Prologue**

Back when he was alive, people called Sasuke Uchiha one of the most good-looking young men they had ever seen. While he wasn't particularly prone to giving compliments, he was more than willing to accept them. Even if he didn't show it, he took great pleasure in knowing that he had something nobody else did, something that made him special.

However, now that he was mostly invisible to human eyes, he didn't get so many compliments on his appearance. It was disappointing. But that didn't mean that he was no longer special.

He was walking along a high-end street in the very late evening, strangers occasionally passing him but never noticing him. He only gave each of them a brief glance before dismissing them from his mind. They weren't important. Humans never were. They were nothing more than an unfortunate necessity: a selfish, ignorant food source.

"Sasuke."

He flicked his gaze upwards – the voice had been quiet, but he had no trouble noticing that it came from a rooftop above him. He kept walking.

"You can't ignore me." The voice was now right behind him. "You're not supposed to be here."

Sasuke just shrugged. He wasn't feeling threatened. It was against every law they had for vampires not to fight other vampires, so he was quite safe – not that anyone could take him, anyway.

He was a vampire, but that alone wasn't enough to make him special; he was also the One, and that meant he didn't have to follow the rules. Whether the other vampires liked it or not.

"Sasuke Uchiha, if you're going to disregard the law, then so am I. I will knock you out and drag you back under if you make me."

He actually snorted at that, unable to stay composed. "Temari, a little bit of security training doesn't make you as tough as you think you are. Go home and look after your brothers, or that boyfriend you picked up. Shikamaru, right? He's a little young for you."

"I will _break _you." Temari's voice was full of poison. The two had never particularly been fans of each other, which was hard for her, since everybody else _was _a fan of Sasuke. Also difficult was the fact that she was at least four hundred years his senior, and that meant nothing to him. He just had no sense of authority, no acknowledgement for those above him.

"You can't touch me."

"What part of this don't you get? It doesn't matter how special you are, you're not allowed to kill anyone tonight. You weren't sent on any mission. If I hurt you, the Elders will back me up completely."

"Go back to your boyfriend, Temari," Sasuke said again, very scornfully. "If you were a bit more competent, you'd have realised that it's completely legal for me to be here. Look at me – I'm depleted. I haven't hunted in two years. And in an emergency, anybody's allowed up here."

He was right, of course. Sasuke always had an answer for everything. It didn't mean Temari had to like it.

"You didn't tell anyone you were coming."

"I forgot. Sue me."

Sasuke watched her seethe for a moment before she vanished into the night. He continued walking, satisfied that he was now properly alone. He was searching for a victim, a very specific sort of human: one that he felt _ought_ to die.

Midnight came and went, and he finally found someone: a boy, no more than twenty-one, with large clothes and a heavy-looking backpack ambling along the pavement in a sleepy daze. Sasuke watched the boy carefully, coming closer, matching his pace.

His hair appeared a very light shade of grey, which Sasuke's brain instantly transposed to blonde. Colour was a benefit that only living people had, for the most part. But he had been doing this for a long time, and he knew the colours for what they really were. There were a lot of luxuries that only normal humans got to experience, but Sasuke didn't miss them. If you weighed up the good and the bad parts of being a vampire, the good clearly won out. He was powerful beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and that made the sacrifices worth it.

The blonde boy shuffled quickly along the pavement, head tilted slightly downward and expression grim. Seeing that expression convinced Sasuke that he had found his next victim. He knew from the sudden burst of anger he felt, the urge to kill not just one human, but every human and every other living thing on Earth. This boy had a grim expression because he thought his life wasn't good. Sasuke would kill him and make him appreciate life. Sasuke may not have needed colour, but he was well aware that life was better than death.

He followed the boy, only inches behind him, but his perfect predator body meant that the boy had no idea he was there. This close, Sasuke could smell the heat of the boy's blood.

Seconds left before he attacked . . . precious seconds . . . in spite of himself, he was quivering with desire. The living could never understand the rush of blood pumping through their veins the vampires craved so much. Drinking blood gave them a brilliant rush of something they didn't have otherwise: life. Blood brought them back to life. The adrenaline of being alive, even for the briefest of moments, was what kept them clutching wildly at their existence when by all natural rights they should have been gone. It was the final act of desperation, of illusion, even though Sasuke would never admit to feeling desperate.

His speed was admirable. The instant the boy approached near an alleyway, Sasuke threw out an arm and caught him by the throat. Unable to see Sasuke, the boy was unable to defend himself. They staggered off the main road down the alley, where no one could see what happened next.

"What the hell!" the boy yelled. He still couldn't see Sasuke, and everyone responded the same way to being attacked by an invisible force.

Sasuke leaned right up to the boy's ear. "Hello."

The boy obviously heard him, and freaked out completely: also what all victims did. Sasuke enjoyed taunting them. This one swung his arms around in a desperate attempt to hit him, but he missed terribly.

"Try again," Sasuke taunted.

"Just what the hell _are _you?" the boy hollered, panic permeating every word. "Just take whatever you want!"

He certainly gave up quickly. Oh well, they couldn't all be brave. And Sasuke was almost losing his self-control anyway, so maybe it was time to end the tussle. Sasuke wrenched the boy onto the ground and slammed his head down hard enough that he must have been seeing stars. Limp now, the boy had no defence against what was to come.

Sasuke decided to take his time as he bit down into the boy's neck. Usually it was recommended that they target the armpit or the thigh – less overt places, but still with ample blood flow – but Sasuke enjoyed the occasional theatrics of pretending to be a 'classic' vampire. Being less inclined to follow the rules, he was able to keep up with human society, learn their popular culture and societal changes. Human ideas of vampires had changed, but not much, and the level of accuracy had remained pretty much the same.

Physically, people knew exactly what vampires were like: stronger, faster than humans could ever be, ghastly pale (to those who could see them), but otherwise looking as normal as anyone.

Mentally, though, vampires were always depicted as savages, agents free of any authority but their own urges; that couldn't have been more wrong. Their hierarchy was one of the smallest and strictest in existence. They were very, very organised.

Sasuke felt the boy's blood beginning to enter his system, warming him from the inside out. It was like a healing force, trying its best to turn him human again. The more he drank, the more his body tried to replicate life: sepia tones began to worm their way into his vision, and he knew that within minutes he would be able to see in full colour again, if only for a little while. Also, his skin would have flushed, making him momentarily visible to anyone who passed them right now.

Soon, the blonde boy was virtually dead. Technically Sasuke's poison had just paralysed his movement, but without blood there wasn't much that could be done for him.

There was only one thing left for Sasuke to do, and it was the most troublesome step of the hunting process. He considered just leaving the body here to create a stir, but even he didn't want to break the rules that badly. The law said that any victim needed to be brought before the Council of Elders for a trial, to determine whether they were a suitable candidate for the conversion process – becoming a vampire themselves. Most people failed and were left to die a seizing, bloodless death. But sometimes . . . sometimes they had something the Elders wanted. Something the small vampire community needed.

Scornfully, Sasuke draped the boy over his shoulders and walked away from his crime scene. He exclusively selected the most useless victims he could find, preferring to watch them sentenced to death than to recruit them. As far as he was concerned, they didn't need more vampires. They were strong enough.

This one had nothing the vampire community needed, and it would be a pleasure to watch him die.

* * *

**Author's note: **This Sasuke is a bit of a brat. Well, he has spent the last three hundred years having people tell him he's Vampire Jesus. He's bound to get a swell head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: **Thanks for the interest, guys! You encouraged me to power out this next chapter before my uni semester begins (in one hour). And the next chapter is almost totally written as well, so hopefully you'll be seeing that one in a few days, too.

Hope you're ready for some real science mixed with a lot of fake science!

* * *

**Affirmation of Death**

Vampires lived underground, deep underground, the heat of the rocks meaning nothing to their adjusted circulatory systems. Their general lack of body heat and visibility meant that they stayed off most human radar, and they kept their home rough and erratically designed so it looked natural, not created. As a result, their cave system had sporadic changes in size, some areas broad as a football field and others as narrow as a footpath. In spite of this, they had built and filled the whole space with all the necessities for living (so to speak), and even a few luxuries. Very few spots were lit, as their vision was still clear as day in the blackness.

Now, with the body of the dying boy hoisted on his shoulder, Sasuke was approaching the mouth of the largest cave, where a lone man sat boredly behind a stone-crafted desk.

Sasuke carelessly dropped the lifeless body at his feet. "Call the Elders."

He spoke to Hayate, the administrator for all official events and decisions, which amounted to being a glorified assistant for the Elders when they needed him. It was a trivial position, considering what all the other vampires were allowed to do, but sadly, Hayate had very little choice in the matter. His physical prowess had been drastically compromised some time ago, so menial tasks were all he was good for now.

A single eyebrow was arched as Hayate gazed at the boy sprawled on the ground. "Another one?"

"Don't lecture me."

"You know _they_ will. Have you ever thought about being cooperative?"

Sasuke didn't dignify that with a response. Dragging his victim all the way from the populated human streets down through a passage to the underground had left him exhausted and mildly irritable. It shouldn't have been a problem, but damn it, the boy was heavier than he looked. Vampires weren't impervious to everything.

After another weary 'just you wait' look, Hayate assented to get word to the Elders that they were needed for an Affirmation of Death.

These Affirmations – A.D.s, as they called them – were the reason that not one of Sasuke's chosen victims over the last three centuries had become vampires themselves after being attacked. Turning someone into one of them was a delicate procedure, more a surgery than anything else, and their numbers and resources were sparse enough that they didn't want to waste them on unremarkable people. The A.D. was a trial, where a victim was examined, interrogated – whatever was required for the Elders to estimate their potential. And since Sasuke always chose the most unremarkable victims he could find . . .

The Elders were quick to respond to Hayate's summons, though they were obviously disgruntled that it was one of Sasuke's again. He grabbed the boy's limp arm and dragged it unceremoniously into the cave where they waited.

The largest cave in their system had been fashioned to resemble a courtroom, with a large podium that looked like a judge's seat. It was where legal matters and species-wide calamities were discussed, usually just by the Elders, but occasionally with more democratic input from the community. The Elders themselves were crotchety old men, even by vampire standards, though of course their appearances didn't show it.

The head of the council, Sarutobi the Third, was the first to approach Sasuke, with the others close behind. "Why am I not surprised to see you again, Sasuke? Wasn't it only last year that I told you we were sick of your lack of control, and that you needed to stay underground until we specifically assigned you a victim?"

"Two years ago," Sasuke grumbled.

"You wouldn't have to hunt so much if you did what everybody else did, and stored their blood. Once again, we need to express our concerns that you are more interested in killing for sport than for food."

"Isn't that why you want me in the first place?"

The Third hesitated. "The purpose of the One isn't to kill. It is to lead. Death is an unfortunate side effect of war, but the war hasn't started yet. We aren't ready, and until we are, we all need to obey the laws in order to survive. This includes you."

This speech was familiar. Sasuke had heard it two years ago, and another year before that.

He knew the reason he was special was because he was instrumental in an upcoming war. That was no secret. The vampire community believed, because of who he had been when he was alive, that he was the perfect candidate for leading the charge against humans. They expected him to be a perfect fighter, a perfect manipulator, whatever was required to gain power.

But, as the Third said, they weren't ready yet. Their numbers were too small, and they weren't about to compensate for that by allowing nobodies to turn.

"Just give him the A.D.," Sasuke muttered.

The Third walked around the body once, giving it a brief once-over, before leaning down. From a pocket he produced a syringe, which Sasuke knew was full of the cure for vampires' paralysis poison. The boy began twitching immediately, and the Elders went to sit at their stand.

Sasuke perched comfortably on top of a storage cupboard at the back of the room; he was not an Elder and therefore didn't need to be seated formally. Spectators technically weren't allowed in the hall during an A.D., but as Sasuke was the boy's killer he was a special exception. He always attended his victims' A.D.s because he relished in their fear, their desperate pleading - the expressions on their faces, contorted with anguish, as it sunk in that they were dead. None of them ever wanted to die. They always begged to be brought back, but not one of them had been. Vampires were the elite, and demand was only for the best humans to be converted. Usually the only ones who were converted had been specially sought out and tracked down as a mission, so great was their strength. However, occasionally a normal victim was lucky, perhaps by having some connections with elite humans, or just having unusual skill or power in some field.

After a time, the boy had regained consciousness enough to clamber into a seated position. His eyes were darting around wildly, yet blankly – he couldn't see in the dark.

"Shit," he said.

Sasuke couldn't resist the urge to roll his eyes. That _would _be the first word out of the young idiot's mouth. The Elders would chew him up and spit him out.

The Third spoke. "State your name."

The boy jumped, but to Sasuke's disappointment, not as high as some of the others. Sarutobi's gravelly voice from the blackness was usually enough to scare them straight.

"Uh, hey," the boy said uncertainly. "Whoever said that? Can you turn on the lights in here or something?"

There was a pause. Then, "State your name."

This was always how it went. The Third would reduce the victim to a quivering mess by asking simple yet threatening questions, until they inferred that they were dead and being judged by whatever God they believed in. Some prayed, some cried, some screamed. Sasuke was keen to learn which one this boy would do.

"I – I'm not telling you anything about me until I know what's going on!"

Another pause. They were calculated to make the victim most nervous.

"Your name is Naruto Uzumaki," the Third said. The boy choked a little bit, his façade of confidence ebbing as he heard that his identity was already known. This was another old trick: when Sarutobi had reached down to give the boy the paralysis cure, he also dextrously stole whatever personal effects he could find. Usually it was a wallet, complete with identification. "Now, state your age."

It was at this point that the victims usually realised that there was no point lying or being evasive. While waiting to see the boy squirm, Sasuke mulled his name over in his head. _Naruto. Never met anyone called that before. Though really, it's not like I'm going to get the chance to meet this one, so it's still a moot point._

But although Naruto appeared extremely uncomfortable, he was beginning to look more annoyed than frightened. "Okay, so you stole my licence. I'm still not telling you anything!"

"_State your age._"

The Third's voice was steeled and intimidating now; he was in no mood for games.

Naruto clamped his mouth shut and said nothing.

"You are twenty years old," the Third snapped. "You were born on October the tenth in Saint Lucia's Hospital. You are asthmatic."

Naruto didn't respond.

"You're dead, Naruto Uzumaki. You're dead and these questions are to determine your fate."

Nothing.

Sasuke saw one of the Elders whisper to another, and they both gave curt nods. Clearly, they were getting impatient with Naruto's petulant little act, and were ready to pronounce him dead. His blood loss would claim him soon, if he didn't start being more cooperative.

The Third fired question after question, demand after demand at Naruto, but the boy stayed true to his word and didn't say anything else. Eventually, Sarutobi turned to the Elder next to him and said, "Give him some light."

The Elder rose from her seat and activated the gas torches set up around the room. The light blinded Naruto for a second, but when he could finally see, he whirled around, looking at everything. He looked sorely tempted to exclaim something, but he stuck to his silence.

All of the Elders shared a look, which Sasuke knew meant this A.D. was over. Naruto was about to be sentenced.

"I see you have said all that you are going to say," sighed the Third. "In that case, there is no need for this to continue. We have made our decision about your future, and on behalf of the Council of Elders, I sentence you to be medically recuperated and converted. Your human life is over, but you are not truly going to die tonight. You are to be immediately transported to Doctor Inuzuka's operating theatre for blood transfusion, escorted by Sasuke Uchiha."

_W – what?_

What just happened?

"Sasuke, for bringing Naruto in, you are awarded mentorship of him. You are to oversee his recovery and training, and initiate him into our laws. _All _of our laws," the Third added. "Not just the ones you pick and choose."

While Sasuke sat there in shock, Naruto slowly turned and looked in his direction. Since he had so recently drank blood, he was completely visible to the boy for the first time. Both of them were wide-eyed and unsure about what was going on now. Theoretically, Sasuke knew what happened. But there was no way he was going to accept it.

The Elders wanted Naruto to be a vampire.

The one who had activated the lights approached Naruto and grabbed his wrist. With a cry, he tried to pull away as the Elder bit him, injecting in more paralysis poison. Slowly he grew limp once again. Outside, Hayate must have called for some assistance, because as if on cue, four large men bearing security emblems entered. The Third made a gesture, and one of the guards hoisted Naruto up over his shoulder, with much greater ease than Sasuke had when he tried. The guards then moved out.

"This Affirmation of Death is complete. Sasuke, you'd better follow your new protégée."

Numbly, and for possibly the first time in recent memory, Sasuke obeyed.

He didn't understand it. Naruto hadn't even begged. He had been . . . so damn _stubborn_. Sasuke had never seen a dead person not cling with all their strength to the possibility of keeping some semblance of humanity. They were always desperate.

And now . . . accepted?

What did Naruto have that made him worth keeping alive? He was too young to be important to the vampire community, and he hadn't expressed anything even of vague interest to them that would make them want him. He hadn't said anything at all.

Surely – Sasuke was instantly filled with revulsion – the Third hadn't been impressed by _that._ He had to have been smarter than to mistake childishness for gall. Otherwise this was all a mistake, and the boy being marched off to Inuzuka right at this moment was just an ordinary, pathetic human. If he could still be called that.

"No matter, then," Sasuke murmured to himself, only dimly aware that he had spoken aloud. Doubtless Naruto wouldn't survive Inuzuka's transfusion, if he were just a mistake.

The transfusion was the replacement of all of one's blood with a special substance, coined 'monster blood'. Monster blood acted in much the same way as regular blood: it kept the organs functioning, the body living; however, its reaction in a human's system had a multiplicitude of effects, the most vital being that it speedened and strengthened one's muscles, and allowed one's organs to continue functioning well beyond the human lifespan. It affected them right down to their very cells to make them virtually immortal. It also caused one's skin to become translucent, colourless, and smoothly soundless. It was what made them the perfect predators; indestructible. Unfortunately not all of monster blood's effects were positive: the tightening of the optic nerve connections made one's sight virtually flawless, but in return it destroyed the cones, eliminating colour from vision.

And, of course, monster blood was unable to absorb nutrients from any food or drink, and could only absorb its most similar substance – more blood. Vampires could eat or drink anything, but it would pass straight through them, without any component removed.

Because of all the human blood being thrown around, Sasuke was not permitted to enter Inuzuka's transfusion theatre. Nor was the Third, nor were most vampires. Their hunger would be too great, and the human wouldn't stand a chance. Sasuke was, however, fully intending to watch every revolting second from outside the thick, glass theatre windows.

Naruto's numb body was urgently stretched onto a white fiberglass bench, which was then lifted by the guards (with no regard for its weight at all) into the theatre. It had been years since the last transfusion, which explained why the guards were able to walk in there presently unaffected. Following the guards was Inuzuka himself.

Kiba Inuzuka was relaxed and charismatic. Those were rare enough qualities in a normal vampire, but Inuzuka was hardly normal. Some didn't even really count him as a vampire, and preferred to call him a werewolf. This actually came down to the monster blood: back when Inuzuka was given his own transfusion, the new blood was accidentally contaminated by some kind of animal compound. As a result, he couldn't digest human blood, only animal blood, and was no threat to people whatsoever. He could bathe in human blood and not be affected by it, if he wanted.

"Sasuke Uchiha," Inuzuka said with a grin. "It's about time you picked a winner. You must be so proud."

Sasuke snorted. "Don't get your hopes up."

"Oh, this wasn't your plan? Who'd have thought _the_ Sasuke Uchiha, who's killed ten times as many people as anyone else in one tenth the time, wasn't trying to follow the rules? Shocking."

"Don't you start too."

"Hey, I don't care." Inuzuka shrugged. "I just do my job. But even if you're a pompous ass, I like you, and it would suck if the Elders finally got sick of your superiority complex and punished you."

"They wouldn't. I'm – "

"The One, I know, I know. Did I mention you're a pompous ass?"

Sasuke ignored him. "How many people have died on your operating table?"

"Only two in eight hundred years. Way better than the old record. But then, no other doctor has ever had my particular immunity to the blood."

"Right," said Sasuke. "Well, I'm not telling you to _deliberately _kill this one . . . "

Inuzuka laughed and strode into his operating theatre, head held high. As Sasuke took a seat where he could watch the gruesome action through the one-way glass, he wondered if Inuzuka knew he had only been half-joking.

* * *

**A/N: **Next chapter, Sasuke and Naruto can _finally _interact with each other. About freaking time! Also, some Gaara. Because Gaara.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: **Thanks, everyone! It's been a long time since I've been this motivated to write, especially on a multichapter fic, so it's great to have your reviews, favourites and alerts to inspire me. I know vampire stories aren't everyone's cup of tea (including mine, usually), and those who really like them tend to like them a very specific way, so I'm grateful that people are receiving this well!

Sorry about the lack of romance in early chapters, if you're waiting for it. I like these guys with a healthy dose of anger and jealousy before anything else. XD That's pretty canon, right?

I'm trying to post this as quickly as possible, since I'm back at uni and might get a huge assignment any day now. Plus I have to move house soon. Argh, real world problems! Most of the next chapter is written though, so hopefully it'll be here soon too!

'Inuzuka' is really hard to write over and over again.

* * *

**The Training**

Inuzuka emerged with a grimace.

"Messy work," he said. "I wish the kid were a bit older, so I could quote some Macbeth."

Integrated with human society though Sasuke was, he knew nothing about Shakespeare, and didn't feel the need to inquire. There were more important things.

"He survived, then?" he asked aggressively.

Inuzuka threw him an insulted look. "Of course! I'm not a butcher. And I was referring to _'who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?'_" he added.

Sasuke very deliberately ignored him. "I didn't think the weak ever survived."

"True," Inuzuka granted. "But the Council hasn't misjudged anyone in, what, three hundred years?"

"They have this time," Sasuke growled savagely. "You didn't see his trial. It was an embarrassment."

"Well, I'll take your word for it." Politics weren't really Inuzuka's game, so he wasn't about to get hostile with Sasuke over them. Very few people enjoyed that experience. This especially wasn't the issue to argue, as Sasuke had a very personal connection to the last 'mistake' the Council had made, and although nobody mentioned it, it was present in everyone's mind. "Still, he's a full-on vampire now, so I guess we'll have to get used to him. It's not like he's the first rookie you've hated. Remember when Lee first started?"

Sasuke's expression turned sour enough to make Inuzuka snicker. That humiliation was still fresh enough to sting.

"Just let me know when he's awake and ready for Gaara. Apparently it's my job now to babysit him. Plus, I want to watch him get his ass kicked."

Sasuke walked away, leaving Inuzuka to clean up the operating room after Naruto's transfusion. He didn't want to admit it, but he could smell the blood on Inuzuka's fingernails and it was making him agitated. He could see it too, and since he had just killed, he could see it in colour. That rusty red-brown wasn't the prettiest of shades, but to someone colour blind . . .

He quickened his pace.

* * *

It was hard to say exactly, but Naruto Uzumaki would have sworn he woke up screaming. His whole body was burning from the inside out; he could feel the fire, he could _smell _the fire sizzling at his bones. Tears of pain ran down his face as he thrashed and thrashed but found himself unable to move.

No one was around to tell him this was normal.

Although his eyes weren't working, his ears could detect the way his screams of pain echoed off nearby walls. In the very back of his mind, he knew he was in a very enclosed space. A terrifying thought tore through him:_ I've been buried alive! With flesh-eating bugs!_

He flailed harder, but the pain refused to subside. He found words coming out of his mouth unbidden.

"Kill me!" he shrieked to whoever could hear him. "Somebody please come and kill me!"

He thought he heard a sound, but he couldn't stop himself screaming for long enough to listen. He hoped intensely that it was a person coming to end his torture, for better or for worse.

"Please, please, if you're there you have to help me!"

There was a noise again, then Naruto got the sensation that someone was standing right above him.

A cold voice said, "This is what they're like when they're ready?"

Naruto realised the voice wasn't talking to him when another, further away, replied, "Oh, how quickly they forget! You cried like a baby when it was your turn."

The strain that Naruto was putting on himself to keep quiet for even these few seconds was overwhelming. He gasped like he was hyperventilating and shook violently. Now that it was clear that he wasn't being buried and eaten alive, a new possibility sprang into his head: _I'm having some kind of drug withdrawal!_

He couldn't remember ever taking a drug in his life, but that didn't mean it had never happened. Still, it was a long shot.

"So am I just supposed to drag him to Gaara's arena like this?"

"Hey, he's your charge, not mine. You can kiss him better for all I care."

"You can't just leave!"

The second speaker laughed, and must have been walking off as he did so. The first speaker, the cold-voiced one, cursed under his breath. It was the last thing Naruto head before letting out a moan.

"Oh, shut up," the cold voice said irritably.

Naruto twisted and writhed, but something restrained him. He was tied to something by his wrists and ankles. "I can't just stop being in pain!" he yelled.

The person didn't answer right away, and Naruto was afraid he was going to leave too, but then he said, "Your body's adjusting to the new blood. There's too much pressure. You need to hurt yourself – bite your tongue or something."

It didn't occur to Naruto to think about how little sense any of that made, nor to question why the other's voice sounded so begrudging. He bit down hard on his tongue, barely feeling the sharp sting compared to what he already felt. The person was right; it was as if he had turned on a tap to let all of his pain gush out. He felt blood well up in his mouth, but his tongue wasn't working enough to taste it.

"Thanks," he gasped. Either blood or saliva dribbled from his lips.

"Your eyes aren't broken, you know."

Slowly, Naruto opened them. It was blinding; the room he was in was pure white, not a mark anywhere. And the person who was helping him . . .

That couldn't be right.

Something was wrong with his vision. The room, he could accept, but the person – there was no way a person could be black and white.

"I – I'm colour blind," Naruto whispered.

"Better than being dead."

_Dead?_

Memories suddenly came flooding back. It was a cold night, he had just finished work and was reluctantly heading home to face his grumpy landlord, but on the way something went wrong. He thought he'd been stabbed. He passed out.

Then he'd woken up in a giant room, thinking he was hallucinating about going to prison. An old guy – or maybe a bunch of old guys – had shot questions at him. They told him he was dead. He couldn't remember how he reacted. But then he'd been carried out and the last thing he had seen, until right now, was the same person standing over him now.

Nothing made sense. "Who are you?"

"Sasuke Uchiha. How much have you figured out?"

"Not much," Naruto admitted. His arms were starting to hurt, though. "D'you think you could let me off this table?"

"In a second." Sasuke's eyes stared into him penetratingly. It was unnerving not being able to tell what colour they were. He felt like he was stuck in an old movie. "Tell me what you think is going on."

Naruto was a bit taken aback. "I guess . . . I must've been in some kind of accident. Did I get mugged or something? And I guess I needed a blood transfusion and now you're checking me for amnesia. Though I've got to be honest, this hospital could use a lot of work. Same with your bedside manner."

He cracked a smile, but Sasuke didn't. He must have been one of those humourless doctors.

"Naruto," Sasuke said, testing out the name. "You're a vampire."

Smile vanishing, Naruto blinked. "Oh. That's . . . not quite what I guessed."

Honestly, he had no idea what to make of that. Obviously he was wrong about being in hospital, because "you're a vampire" was _not _something a doctor said to a patient. But then what else would explain the pain, the blood . . .

The court of men telling him he was dead?

"Oh, wow," Naruto said. "Really? And if you're joking, don't feel too proud. I'm extremely gullible."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, as if no one had ever accused him of joking before. Nevertheless, he reached down and fiddled with whatever was holding Naruto down. Four clicks, and he was free.

"Thanks." Naruto gingerly sat up and looked around. "So I'm a vampire? Like, really a vampire? I suppose you can prove that to me."

Sasuke shrugged. "What would you like me to do?"

"Erm . . . depends on what kind of vampire we're talking about. Dracula? Interview? Blade? Twilight?" A thought occurred to Naruto. "Hang on, are you, like, a hundred years old? Then you probably don't even know what Twilight is, you lucky bastard."

"I do know," Sasuke snapped. He seemed defensive. Naruto wondered if he was making him uncomfortable.

"Can I turn into a bat?"

"No."

"Can I only go out at night?"

"No."

"And I definitely don't sparkle, right?"

"Right."

"Okay. But I do drink blood and live forever and get crazy powers?"

A pause. Then, "Yes."

Naruto nodded, getting the idea, but still unsure how he should feel about this. On the one hand, vampires! For real! Assuming, of course, that it was real. That was the other hand. But then there was a third hand, on which he'd been a vampire for all of ten minutes and had been in constant agony, and also lost his colour vision. That was a blow he didn't anticipate.

He glanced at the bench on which he was sitting. "So, could I pick this up and hurl it across the room?"

"You could, but Inuzuka wouldn't be too happy," Sasuke said. "But it's my job right now to take you to someone who'll show you all that stuff."

"Oh, cool. Like a trainer?"

"Like one."

Sasuke still wasn't giving Naruto enough information for him to tell whether he should have been excited or upset. Really, he was still just confused.

Motioning for Naruto to follow him, Sasuke started to head out of the miserable cube room. For some reason this bothered Naruto – the part where he was being told where he had to go. _You'd think being dead would give me a little more freedom. _Still, he did follow. He was curious about this other guy who would train him.

It was a long walk, and for the most part Naruto's attention was on his surroundings, and especially the other people who passed him. Were they really all vampires? He could believe it of some of them, with their sharp eyes and pallid skin, but others looked so normal, so innocent. At one point he saw a huge pile of discarded marionettes and wondered, stricken, if there were actually children down here.

Mind you, he didn't know where 'down here' was. He just assumed it was underground because the space was wide and rocky, the walls bright and cavernous. He couldn't tell what colour they were, but he guessed orange for some reason.

"So, tell me," said Naruto, trying to make conversation. "Are there any rules to this vampire thing, or is it pretty much a free-for-all?"

A flash of irritation passed over Sasuke's face. "Gaara will tell you what you _can _do, then I'll tell you what you're allowed to do."

He was definitely being frosty. Naruto tried to push past it. "Why? Is it your job to handle all the new people?"

"Just the ones I killed."

An awkward pause followed as Naruto stopped moving. "Oh."

He hadn't really thought about that part. Should he have felt hurt? Insulted? Special?

"In that case, why me?"

Sasuke didn't respond to that, even when Naruto asked again. In fact, that effectively killed the conversation. They continued on in silence, while Naruto thought about why Sasuke was trying so hard to be unlikeable.

Finally, they reached a place that was less a room and more a pit. It was smaller than the courtroom but a million times bigger than the tiny torture chamber they'd just come from (at least, Naruto assumed it was a torture chamber). The pit's floor was coated in a layer of sand that was _just _thick enough to make walking sluggish. It was mostly bare, but there were a few signs that someone used this place to train themselves physically: a wooden climbing frame, a rope with a grappling hook attached, some old tires set out in an obstacle course.

And, of course, the blood. Naruto couldn't see it, but he could definitely smell it.

He turned to Sasuke, unsure about what to do since nobody else was here, but Sasuke had already vanished from his side. Well, that was unhelpful. All he knew was that some guy named Gaara was supposed to meet him. Was Sasuke hiding somewhere? Watching? Was something about to happen?

The answer to that question hit Naruto extremely literally – out of nowhere, he felt an inhumanly strong fist hit him square in the stomach, shooting him off his feet. Sand flew in the air as he landed, so he ended up with two reasons to cough his lungs out. He was completely winded.

From somewhere behind him, he could have sworn he heard Sasuke laughing.

Naruto picked himself up off the ground as soon as he could breathe again. He looked around for whoever had hit him, but he saw no one.

"What am I supposed to do?" he called out uncertainly to Sasuke.

Somebody else answered. "Stop me."

Naruto barely had time to register this new, frosty voice before he found himself knocked off his feet again, this time from a sweep to his legs. This time he landed painfully on his wrists as he tried to break his fall.

"Stop you?" he protested. "I can't even see you!"

Still, he put up his fists in a futile attempt to defend himself. He could at least _look _like he was tough. Inside, though, it was like someone had cold-rinsed his stomach. He was being beaten up, badly. Was he a vampire or not? Sasuke told him he could throw a table across a room, but this new guy was thrashing him!

Maybe this was all a really, really elaborate ruse people had set up as an excuse to fight him . . .

But then, he heard Sasuke's voice carry sharply across the pit. "Don't be an idiot! How do you expect to hit him if you can't see him yet? Look for him."

And even though Naruto knew he'd just been called an idiot, he found himself reassured that Sasuke was giving him something to work with. He couldn't say that he liked Sasuke, but he did want to, and maybe him offering help here was a kind of peace offering.

"You at least want to give Gaara a _slight _challenge before he breaks you in half," Sasuke added.

Naruto felt himself flushing. Okay, so not a peace offering. Fine, Sasuke could go jump in a lake – or a bath tub full of garlic, or whatever was bad for vampires – for all he cared. He didn't need a mentor!

Still, he took heed of Sasuke's advice and concentrated on looking rather than fighting back. At least now he knew that this was Gaara he was facing, so this was meant to be happening. _Come on_, he thought. _If I'm a freaking vampire, I should have super senses! He can't possibly be so fast that I can't see him . . . unless . . ._

"Wait," Naruto exclaimed. "Are you _invisible_?"

"I shouldn't be." Gaara's voice came from right in front of him, as did another fist to the face. But something different happened this time: the split second before the impact, Naruto actually thought he saw a faint outline of a hand. Was that it? Was that what he was supposed to be seeing?

Struggling, every muscle in his face hurting, he squinted as he searched for anything that looked like a ghostly human being. He felt his eyes strain, but finally he saw it again. There was definitely something there, just forward and to his left. Improvising, he reached down, scooped up a handful of sand, and threw it in that direction.

It hit something and dropped to the ground. He'd done it! Gaara was there!

"Ha!" he yelled triumphantly.

It was easy, now that he knew what he was looking for and where it was. Gaara's outline was getting clearer and clearer, to the point where Naruto thought he could even identify a few of his features: he wasn't tall and he was very slim, which probably explained why he was so fast; his knees were bent in such a way that he looked like a cat about to spring. Naruto could see the next attack coming, but he couldn't do anything to stop it.

He caught a glimpse of Gaara's eyes. They were pale, whatever colour they were, and frighteningly devoid of emotion.

Naruto was sure he couldn't beat Gaara, but he was equally sure that he was supposed to try. This was meant to be a training session, showing him what crazy vampire powers he had now. _Maybe I'm supposed to be testing myself._

So after picking himself up for what must have been the hundredth time, he scanned the pit for anything he could use. The tires? No, too awkward. The grappling hook? Well, he didn't exactly want to stab Gaara. Could vampires die from getting stabbed?

The one other object in here caught his eye: the wooden climbing frame, presumably stuck deep into the ground. There was no way he could lift it in the normal world. But if this vampire stuff was actually real . . . then he might have a chance.

"All right, Sasuke!" he called out, a bit excited despite himself. "Time for me to see if you're a liar!"

He broke into a sudden sprint towards the frame. He wasn't astoundingly fast, but considering not thirty minutes ago he'd had an operation, his pace was still something to be admired. He reached his target and grabbed, arm span barely enough to get both hands around it, and pulled.

_Woah._

The board didn't just slide out of the sand, it _flew _out. It came out so easily that it nearly took Naruto off balance as he lifted it over his head. He had no more doubts; he was superhumanly strong. Sasuke was telling the truth.

And he had a weapon. Sudden confidence flooded through him, energising him, making him forget how much his body hurt. He squinted again to see where Gaara was, and this time he found him immediately. It was remarkable how well his eyes worked; it had been so disconcerting to lose colour that he hadn't realised how much sharper everything looked.

Naruto waited for Gaara to run towards him, ready for the next punch.

* * *

As Sasuke watched from the edge of the arena, he became acutely aware of a struggle going on inside him. On the one hand, he was dying to see Naruto get pummelled, because Naruto represented so much that he disliked. As a human, he had looked like a snivelling, unappreciative brat, and as a vampire he was a mistake. Worse, because mistakes were so rare, nobody would ever consider it a possibility.

But Sasuke would. He knew a thing or two about the Council's mistakes.

On the other hand, he was Naruto's mentor, and he'd never hear the end of it if anyone thought he was bad at the job. Reluctantly, he found himself calling out little bits of advice, though he made sure to complement them with insults.

Naruto wasn't going to beat Gaara, because nobody beat Gaara, but he was supposed to be learning from this. Learning how to use his new sight, his new strength, his new speed – not to mention his body's new physical limits.

Sasuke smiled. Gaara hadn't even started yet.

Though he had to admit, when Naruto ran for the climbing frame, that was something he hadn't anticipated. Did Naruto plan on hiding behind it in the hope that Gaara wouldn't be able to see him? If so, he was even more of an idiot than he already seemed.

Then he wrenched the frame clean out of the ground, and Sasuke wasn't smiling any more.

Naruto waited until Gaara – whom Sasuke could see perfectly – approached for his next attack before throwing the frame square in his direction. As if in slow motion, it flipped and spiralled through the air, losing grains of sand that were clinging to it, and against all odds it hit its target. Gaara was quick, but the frame was too large and too immediate for him to dodge completely. It crashed against him, and although it splintered upon impact, it effectively stopped Gaara's onslaught.

He stood still. Anyone who didn't know him would assume he was re-evaluating his opponent, but Sasuke knew better. Sasuke knew that Gaara's arsenal went way beyond mere kicks and punches, and that he always held back against a rookie – at first. But surely Naruto's cheap trick had angered him.

Apparently Naruto became a bit scared by Gaara's lack of reaction. "Er . . . I'm sorry, dude! Really sorry! I didn't know it would break like that, and I don't know if it's replaceable, but I was kind of panicking – "

Gaara raised his hand to silence Naruto, and it worked. The blonde stammered away the end of his apology.

"Congratulations," Gaara said. Naruto brightened up.

"Does that mean what I did was right?"

"It was . . . innovative. Improvising can be a very useful hunting technique."

Sasuke couldn't believe what he was hearing. Everybody knew Gaara as an emotionless, immovable fighter; he didn't give out _compliments!_

When it was Sasuke's turn to do this training three hundred years ago, he hadn't been able to see Gaara at all (but that didn't mean Naruto was better than him; Naruto would've been helpless if Sasuke hadn't offered him advice). Instead, he had realised that Gaara's light steps still made slight indents in the sand. He had watched them, followed them, until he could successfully dodge every attack that came his way. Gaara didn't praise him or call him innovative. He'd just said, "Practice is over," then broken Sasuke's ribs.

Naruto was looking pleased with himself. "Thanks, Gaara! It's Gaara, right? I'm glad that's over. But it was some fight! And now I can see you, sort of, and I know how strong I am. That was the point, wasn't it? For me to test myself? We should get a drink or something after that! Do you guys drink?"

_He's unbelievable_, thought Sasuke. No sane person talked to Gaara like that. Gaara, their community's most vicious fighter, whom the Elders didn't send on missions above ground because they feared he might go on a killing spree. Everyone was terrified of him, and Naruto asked him out for drinks.

"That was the point, yes." Gaara's voice held little inflection. Since he wasn't allowed regular contact with the human world, his language skills often struggled to stay modern. "But you misunderstand. We are not finished here just because your eyes work."

Sasuke saw Naruto's face fall.

"Oh. We're – we're not?"

"We're not. Vampires are only supposed to be invisible to humans, not each other. That's no feat. In addition, don't be confused about this: I am not here to be your friend."

It gave Sasuke no small satisfaction to hear Naruto's attempt at friendliness get shut down. He needed to learn his place.

"Practice is over," said Gaara.

Sasuke got to watch intently as Gaara proceeded to break all of Naruto's bones.

* * *

**A/N: **Sasuke telling Naruto to learn his place. Oh, irony. But next chapter they'll finally get to have a _real_ talk to each other. :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: **Three assignments due next week, and I still manage to get a chapter out. Oh, the things I do for fanfiction.

I'm re-watching the Chuunin exam episodes, and it's really quite remarkable: the first time I watched (and I hope you felt the same), to me, Kiba and Neji were the biggest bastards ever. I was on Naruto's side all the way. And then after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, I absolutely fell in love with them and couldn't imagine hating them. Neji is far and away my favourite character (with Shikamaru very clearly second). But now, watching the Chuunin exams again, I still hate Kiba and Neji in them! Neji less so, but Kiba is so evil when he fights Naruto! What the hell?

Ah well. Enjoy! I hope you haven't yet noticed how many times I've written 'Sasuke raised an eyebrow'. Because I have. A lot.

* * *

**The Back Story**

The next time Sasuke saw Naruto was one whole year later. They hadn't been avoiding each other – no, Naruto just hadn't come out of a coma since his first session with Gaara and was confined to an infirmary bed. That wasn't unusual. In fact, only one year was actually quite good. Only a handful woke up within three.

So when Tsunade, the trauma medic, contacted Sasuke to tell him that Naruto was moving and talking again, he was . . . surprised. It had been so easy to assume that Naruto would be a failure, especially after the satisfaction of seeing Gaara destroy him, but he seemed to have been blessed with preternatural luck. The trial, the transfusion, the arena – no failure could survive so much.

Sasuke was also a bit disappointed. If Naruto had died, he, Sasuke, could have gone back to his isolated, protégée-less existence.

He all but dragged himself to the infirmary to see how Naruto was. It turned out he still looked like shit.

"Sasuke," Naruto gasped as he walked in. "Thank God. When some old lady tells you you've been in a coma for a year, you kind of assume the whole vampire thing was a dream."

Sasuke arched an eyebrow. "You're relieved that it wasn't?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, otherwise I'd have lost a year of my life, which would suck, but a year must be like a second for a vampire."

He was more optimistic than Sasuke expected. A sudden thought occurred to him: what if Naruto's human life had actually been so miserable that becoming a vampire was a relief? It was unlikely, considering the nice neighbourhood where Sasuke had found him, but who knew?

"Tell me about yourself." Sasuke sat at the foot of Naruto's bed.

"Huh?"

"You're still going to be in here for a while. Your body can only heal so quickly. Might as well talk to pass the time."

Naruto cracked a sore smile. "Aw, you don't want to hear about me."

"Then you'd better tell me before I rescind the offer," Sasuke teased, surprising even himself. Was he _bantering? _He wasn't even sure he knew how to banter.

Naruto also looked like he appreciated how rare this was. "Um, okay. I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm twenty – oh, I guess I'm twenty-one now. Do vampires count age? Anyway, I've been an orphan since I was thirteen, flunked out of high school because I was such a wreck, then got a graveyard shift at an actual graveyard." He grinned. "But then, I figured out that I actually wanted to give university a try, maybe become a vet or something, so I got a better-paying job as an assistant and started reading up on entrance tests. My best friend Sakura's training to be a nurse and she's been helping . . . me . . . "

He trailed off, looking thunderstruck. "Sakura hasn't – she hasn't seen me in over a year! She's going to think something's wrong!"

"She probably did. I assume someone put you on a missing persons list."

Naruto looked completely crushed, which Sasuke didn't understand. He himself had been lucky enough not to leave any friends behind when he died.

"I've got to see her," Naruto said. He grabbed onto the side of his bed and tried to pull himself more upright. Still in a weak state, he struggled.

"Why?"

"To tell her I'm fine! She must think I got kidnapped, or joined a gang or something, and just gave up on life, but I didn't! She has to know that!"

"You can't change anything there now!" Sasuke said snappishly. Naruto's emotion was getting on his nerves. "You're dead there. You're not allowed to contact people from your past. And furthermore, even if it was allowed, it would still be impossible."

"But I – "

"_It is impossible. _Don't you remember anything about your session with Gaara?"

Naruto screwed up his face in thought. Then, comprehension dawned on him and he slumped in disappointment. "I'm invisible too, aren't I? Great. Sakura probably thinks I'm a drop-out loser and I can't tell her what really happened. This officially sucks."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He wasn't really the comforting type.

They just sat there for a while, long enough that Sasuke began to wonder if he was allowed to leave, until Naruto forced a grin back on his face. "Okay, your turn."

"What?"

"Your turn. I told you all about myself, you tell me all about yourself."

"I'd really rather – "

"Come on! You said it yourself, I'm not going anywhere. I need you to entertain me. If you don't want to tell me about yourself, then at least tell me about Gaara. That guy scared the crap out of me."

A chuckle came unbidden to Sasuke's lips. It was half out of amusement at Naruto's candidness, half out of satisfaction that he had indeed learned to fear someone instead of asking them out for drinks.

"You smiled!" Naruto accused. "That has to mean I win. Tell me!"

Sasuke shrugged. "There's very little to say. Gaara's believed to be the most deadly killer that ever existed. He's been here a lot longer than I have, but he isn't allowed above ground. His brother and sister are vampires, too, and they're . . . competent. Nothing like him, though."

"I got the impression that he was just a _little _bit antisocial."

"Yes." Sasuke considered the best way to phrase what he wanted to say next. "Some vampires act normally by your standards, but most came from very different worlds, which made them useful for our goals. They won't be open to you befriending them. And don't forget that everybody here is older than you. A _lot _older. Just a warning."

Naruto was frowning in what Sasuke thought was scepticism, as if he didn't believe that vampires wouldn't be open to friends. Sasuke felt a stab of annoyance. _Fine, I won't give you any help at all, if you won't accept it._

"How old are you, then?" Naruto inquired. Irritated as he was, Sasuke was almost tempted to lie before accepting that lying would serve no purpose whatsoever.

"Three hundred and thirty."

Naruto let out a low whistle that said plainly that he was impressed. "And you say Gaara's older than you? Shit. That means you guys have lived through _everything! _Did you see the Wild West? Victorian England? Oh! Did you meet Hitler?"

"I'm three hundred and thirty, not omnipresent," Sasuke snapped. "I haven't met every dead celebrity."

"Oh, right. That makes sense. But you still must've been born in, what, the seventeen hundreds? Tell me what it was like back then!"

So, they were back on the subject of Sasuke's life. How quickly the topic had been broached after he'd already refused. Ordinarily if someone asked him personal questions, he made a cutting remark and stormed off, but with Naruto lying helplessly in a sick bed, storming out of the infirmary seemed unnecessarily cruel. Plus, Naruto was so clearly harmless, so it wasn't like he would use any information against Sasuke.

Not that he planned on sharing everything about himself. "I don't remember much. Part of my job here is to keep up with the human world, so there isn't much room for distant memories. But it was different. Things were smaller, people were fewer. What was expected of you was more . . . immediate." He paused, then added, "But some things haven't changed at all. People are still exactly the same."

_Selfish. Aloof. Manipulative._ But he didn't say that, and Naruto didn't ask.

"But you didn't have electricity, right?"

Innocuous questions like that followed for the next twenty minutes or so. Naruto wasn't interested in Sasuke's misanthropic views on humanity, but rather in whether or not he remembered what everything smelled like, and if toothpaste had been invented yet.

Letting his guard down, Sasuke began to relax into the conversation, even smiling once or twice at Naruto's awed fascination.

"No way."

"It's true."

"No. No way. Nuh-uh. You are _not _listed as a World War One soldier."

"I am," Sasuke insisted. "I'm on an honour role of people killed in action. I enlisted, told them I was twenty-five, then left shortly after. It was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission, just gathering information on who the top-ranked soldiers were, but I took it a step further."

"Didn't anyone wonder why they didn't find your body?"

"They didn't find a lot of bodies."

"Oh, okay, but what about birth records? And didn't they need an address so that they could contact your family when you died?"

"They probably assumed I was some kind of homeless, family-less vagrant who joined the army just to have a bed. If anyone did find it odd, I didn't hear about it."

"Oh." Naruto spent a lot of the conversation looking like he wanted to ask more questions but was afraid of prying. He tended to ask the questions anyway. "So, _did _you have a family?"

Sasuke's insides gave a funny jolt. He hadn't really expected that, and since it was a subject very sensitive to him, his automatic urge was to shut down. End the talking. Walk away and leave Naruto here, wondering what he did wrong as he recovered in isolation. But he didn't; he fought that instinct.

He didn't _want _to leave, he realised. Against all precedent, he actually wanted to keep talking about himself.

That was quite unsettling. Why would he now, of all times, suddenly feel like opening up a three-hundred-year-old can of worms by telling Naruto about his family? Nobody else talked about it. He usually just glared at people who asked, and then they never asked again, because they knew that he wasn't someone to cross.

Meanwhile, Naruto had crossed him several times already, even if he didn't know it, and for some reason Sasuke was letting him get away with it! Was it really that cathartic to talk to him?

Some of Sasuke's conflict must have shown on his face, because Naruto quickly said, "You don't have to tell me, if it's a sore point. Don't worry about it. Sorry I asked." But his voice was burning with curiosity. Somehow his insincerity was even more annoying.

"It's not a _sore point_," Sasuke said coldly, surprising Naruto with his attitude change. "If you're so desperate to know, vampires had been targeting my family for a long time. We were some of the only people to know of their existence. We were rich and powerful, and that was what they wanted. They attacked us – me, my parents, my brother – and brought us here. Only my brother and I survived the A.D. when it happened."

Naruto listened, dumbstruck, which was good because Sasuke might have snapped if he got interrupted. When he stayed quiet long enough that Naruto knew he was finished, it was another question that followed.

"You have a brother here?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth. "Had."

"What d'you mean?"

"He was a mistake."

_And I still believe you are, too. I think._

Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke's older brother, was the precise sore point, if Sasuke would ever admit it. Naruto had probably been thinking that going through this transformation with a brother would be helpful, making everything easier and more comfortable. That was not the case at all. It would have been better if Itachi had been shot rather than bitten.

Finally getting that this conversation was unwelcome, Naruto heaved a deep sigh and changed the subject again. "I miss colour."

It took a while, but Sasuke eventually simmered down. While talking about his family put him on the defensive, ready to lash out and hate Naruto, when they talked about mundane things it was practically friendly. Sasuke actually acted like a mentor, explaining to Naruto how he could still identify colours without being able to see them.

He was so engrossed in their conversation that he didn't notice a third person enter the infirmary – quite a feat, considering his perfect hearing. Tsunade the medic leaned against the door frame and caught enough of what they were saying to interject.

"Sasuke, it's a good thing you're in the trauma ward. You must have had quite a bump on the head to develop such a new personality. Chatting? Being nice? I hardly recognise you."

Feeling his face heat up slightly, Sasuke instantly regretted teaching Naruto how to recognise red. "You should have knocked."

"In my own hospital? Don't be ridiculous. You might be special and important, but in here, _my _word is the law."

Sasuke saw Naruto tilt his head at the words 'special and important'. He decided to switch focus. "When will Naruto be out?"

"As soon as he can walk. I wouldn't send him back to Gaara for a couple of weeks, though."

"Did you know he broke my knees twice?" Naruto chimed. Sasuke ignored him.

"So what am I supposed to do with him if he can't train?"

Tsunade shrugged. "Show him a good time? Hell, you can try to kiss him better for all I care."

Sasuke scowled at her, though she didn't bat an eyelid. "Just because you work with Inuzuka doesn't mean you should make the same jokes."

As Tsunade laughed and left the room again, the bed shifted under Sasuke, catching his attention. Naruto had managed to roll himself onto the floor, where he was now grimacing in pain.

"You're on the floor."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"The old lady said I had to walk."

"_If _you could walk." Sasuke shook his head in disbelief. "Did you expect to be cartwheeling out of your bed? Idiot."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "Are you going to sit there calling me an idiot or are you going to help me?"

"Take a guess."

"You're a bit of a bastard, aren't you?"

Sasuke's mouth curved into a small smile. He couldn't remember anyone talking to him like that in his life – either of his lives. He expected to loathe it, but something about it was refreshing. Right at that moment, he couldn't have hated Naruto if he tried.

Then in the next moment, he thought of Gaara, and the compliment of Naruto's fighting, and a little bit of the hatred stirred again. But he still bent down to help Naruto stand up and start walking again. He didn't know why.

* * *

**Author's note: **So, review please? I enjoy them! And I sometimes even reply!


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **I am _so _on fire with this fic. Updates every week! I haven't played a video game since starting uni again, which is insane for me. I haven't even restarted Dragon Age for the 10489th time.

Thank you, everyone, for your reviews! I'm so used to writing oneshots that it's really novel and cool to get reviews with people speculating about what will happen next. It's so hard not to reply, "HERE IS EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AND WHEN AND OOPS, NOW YOU DON'T NEED TO ACTUALLY READ IT. DAMN."

Anyway, have a chapter! This one's quite wordy and plotty - Naruto actually learns a bit. If you're more in this for the SasuNaru, hold out for the next chapter ;) Also, I'm sorry if this ends up being riddled with typos. I don't know why, but I'm having really hard time typing on this computer lately. I think Microsoft Word changed the default font, and now the letters are all small and cramped, so I feel all muddled. Rar, technology.

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**A Friend and a History Lesson**

As soon as Naruto didn't need to lean on Sasuke's shoulder to walk, he was on his own. Sasuke didn't stick around to 'show him a good time', as the doctor had put it; he just muttered, "Do whatever you want. I need some time alone to think."

Which was, Naruto thought, completely ridiculous. He'd had a whole year to be alone and think! Why did he have to do it now, when Naruto really needed some help here?

He was standing like an idiot in between two intersecting tunnels, some distance away from the hospital, nervously trying to stay out of everyone's way. He had no idea where he wanted to go, where he should have gone, or where he was actually allowed to go. Since he was still basically a beginner, he didn't want to assume he had free rein of the place, but could he just walk up and ask someone?

He gave it a go. "Hey," he said, practically jumping in front of the next person to pass him. "I'm sort of new here. Is there anywhere to just hang out? I only just got out of a coma, so I'm not allowed to do anything serious."

The one he'd stopped – a man – gave him a scathing look and kept walking. Naruto instantly felt embarrassed.

"Well, fine! Don't expect any help from me in the future!" he yelled at the man's back. The man's back didn't respond, and he received a few more dirty looks from people.

Naruto self-consciously wandered around, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. He traversed passage after passage, although he stayed warily away from any that appeared to open out into large caves; to him, large caves were the way to Gaara. He wasn't keen to repeat the bone-breaking experience.

So whenever he could, he went down the smallest-looking available path, even if nobody else was going that way. Well, he didn't really want to be around their critical glares anyway. But he stopped abruptly when, after twenty solid minutes of walking, he found himself in front of a brick structure that was built like a small house. It was the first time Naruto had seen something down here that looked normal, like an actual person could live here.

"Welcome to my home, stranger."

Naruto jumped at the breathy voice that had sounded right in his ear. The perpetrator took one look at his stricken face and began howling with laughter. It had definitely freaked Naruto out, but the loudness of the laugh seemed, to him, disproportionate to what had happened. But then, maybe he only thought that because he didn't like being laughed at.

"God, I love newbies," the laughing guy said, wiping a tear from his eye. "I haven't been able to sneak up on anyone in years! It's probably not funny to you at all, but you know what? I don't even care. It's fun for me and I'm going to keep doing it. Anyway, it's Naruto, right?"

"Yeah," replied Naruto, heart still going fast.

"Nice to officially meet you. I'm Kiba, Kiba Inuzuka. Remember me?"

"Er . . . should I?"

"Nah, probably not. I only saw you when you were unconscious, after all." Kiba paused. "I wasn't watching you sleep or anything. I'm not a creep. I'm a surgeon – I'm the one who turned you into a vampire in the first place."

That was a surprise. As Naruto surveyed Kiba, he had been quickly forming an impression of him: grinning, scruffy, baggy-clothed – he didn't look like the other vampires at all, even the most normal-looking ones. Was it something about his skin? It looked fuller, possibly more full of colour.

Kiba looked at Naruto inquiringly. "So, you're a starer?"

"No!" Naruto quickly glanced upwards to avoid eye contact. "It's just . . . honestly, I would have expected you to either be Transylvanian or a mad scientist. Or both."

"Yeah, I haven't rocked any mad scientist glasses for a while." Kiba laughed. "So, you've only met Gaara and Sasuke so far, right? In that case, you'll be happy to know that I am one hundred per cent sane, and zero per cent brooding. The whole evil, scary vampire thing wasn't for me."

"Thank God, I was getting worried it was a requirement." Naruto began relaxing. Kiba _did _seem sane. It was such a relief that that was possible! "Are you normal because you're not five hundred years old?"

Kiba snickered. "Try eleven."

"Eleven – eleven _hundred?_"

"One of the oldest here. Never missed a birthday – in July I'll hit the big one-one-four-six. It's a difficult age to buy for, so I don't expect many presents."

"But that's impossible! I must be like a baby to you! It's crazy! How are we even speaking the same language?"

"Well, you are a bit of a baby, but when you get to my age . . . " Kiba imitated an old man stroking his beard. "It starts to matter less. Same way that it's less weird for a fifty- and forty-five-year-old to date than a seventeen- and twelve-year-old. Or maybe a better analogy would be how grandparents have no problem talking to little kids, but teenagers hate it. As long as you don't need a bib, most of us will treat you normally. Except for Sasuke. He's the bratty exception to every rule."

"Huh."

"As for the language, I've spent more time above ground than anyone else down here, enough to pick up the changes. Not just in English, either: I got good with German and French, too."

"Did _you_ ever meet Hitler?" Naruto asked.

Kiba laughed again. "Did you ask Sasuke that? Nah, I don't do human wars. Not my style. I'm more of a pub-and-trivia kind of guy."

It was easy for Naruto to like Kiba immediately. They stood around talking for a long time, not bothering to move, with nobody else coming down this way to see them. That was most likely because it was a dead end, empty apart from the little house, whose purpose was still unclear. Still, Naruto thought he knew.

"Is this actually your place, then?"

Kiba nodded. "Built it myself. Most of the others just sleep in the softest corner they can find, but I like my creature comforts too much. The Council wasn't happy – they thought humans might pay attention if an underground house made it onto their radar – but they need me, so I have a certain degree of freedom."

Naruto made a move towards the house, expecting Kiba to invite him in, but it didn't happen that way. Instead, he had barely gotten a few steps closer before Kiba threw an arm in front of him.

"Yeah, probably not a good idea for you to go in there. Not to be rude, but I have some – ah – sensitive items inside." When Naruto gave him a questioning look, he explained, "I deal with all the blood that comes in and out of this place. You have a victim, you take enough blood to mess them up a bit, then you give them to me. I take the rest and store it so nobody starves."

"Woah." Naruto swallowed nervously. "There's just _blood _in there?"

"Not much at the moment, but enough to drive you crazy if you get too close."

"Why doesn't it drive you crazy?"

Kiba grinned in a way that could only be described as wolfish. "I'm special."

"Like Sasuke is special?" Naruto couldn't help but say. Kiba's grin slipped a couple of notches.

"Not quite. What's he told you?"

"Nothing, really. That other doctor, Tsunade, said something about him being important."

"Yeah . . . walk with me."

Perplexed, Naruto did as he was told. Kiba steered him back the way he came, then through a series of large passages he hadn't dared to go down earlier. As this happened, Kiba's hand was firmly on his shoulder, and nobody shot him any suspicious glares. Eventually, the passages got smaller again.

Kiba spoke as they went. "You got dealt a rough hand by getting Sasuke as your mentor. He might not tell you everything you need to know, but if you push him, it'll probably make things worse. He is special. Damn special. When he first joined us, I wasn't entirely convinced that he'd ever been human. He was more normal then, but it was still obvious that he was different to anyone else we'd recruited before, which is saying something because we don't choose people lightly. I know Sasuke better than most of the others, but he's only told me bits and pieces about his human life. Don't go nagging him to blurt out family secrets or anything."

"He told me about his brother," Naruto recalled. Kiba was visibly surprised.

"Did he? Well, that's new. Maybe you'll be the one to finally melt the ice around his heart," he joked.

"But I still don't get why he's special."

They stopped walking, and Naruto's stomach did a backflip when he realised that they were standing on the tip of a precipitous ledge, overlooking none other than Gaara's pit. They were up on some sort of viewing platform. From here it looked more like a makeshift arena down there, and it looked like there was more sand than last time.

Feelings of relief swept over Naruto as he didn't see Gaara anywhere. He did, however, see Sasuke. So this was his 'time alone to think'.

He was about to call out a greeting, but Kiba shot him a warning glance.

"Don't. He doesn't like to lose concentration."

"What's he doing?"

It was a fair question. Some of Sasuke's actions were obvious, like how he scaled the climbing frame (_Didn't I break that? _wondered Naruto), using only his hands, or how he threw the grappling hook effortlessly at various points around the pit's borders. Other movements made no sense: at one point he lay down flat in the sand, eyes closed, as if he'd fallen asleep.

Then, so gradually that Naruto didn't notice it happening, he couldn't see Sasuke any more. It was as if his vampire vision had been switched off.

"What happened?" he said wildly to Kiba.

"Sasuke spends every second of his time training. He's even learned to control his blood flow, changing how his skin looks – like camouflage. Don't go expecting you'll be able to do that any time soon."

"So he's still there?" Naruto concentrated really hard on that patch of sand, but he still couldn't see anything. So much for his brilliant new sight.

"Yeah. He's an impressive guy. Takes his job seriously."

"What job?"

Kiba frowned. "He told you about his family, but not how he's the lord master of all vampires? Are you sure we're talking about the same Sasuke here?"

"_Lord master of all vampires?_"

"Well, you know, not really. Everybody just calls him 'the One', I assume because they're all horribly unoriginal. He's supposed to lead us in the fight for – "

He stopped, scrutinising Naruto uncertainly. "I'm not sure if I'm the one to be telling you this. I'm pretty sure it's one of Sasuke's mentor duties to explain the politics to you."

"Oh, come on! You have to tell me now!" Naruto begged. Having to wait for the end of that sentence would kill him. "You said it yourself, Sasuke'll never tell me if I ask!"

Kiba sighed and relented. "Okay. But you're probably going to be a bit bothered by this. You don't have any family up in the human world, do you?"

"Just Sakura. She's like my family."

"Uh oh. Girlfriend?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes irritably. "No."

"Normally we either recruit whole families or people with no close ties whatsoever. But I guess Sasuke didn't expect you to be accepted, did he? He never goes after anyone he's supposed to."

"I don't understand."

"Right, right. There's a lot of history here, and a lot of science. You ever hear of apoptosis? Telomerase?"

"No and no."

"Hmm, okay, I'll go light on the science. Well, as you can probably imagine, for about as long as there have been humans there have been humans searching for immortality. And a long time ago, some people actually found it. Made it. It was a chemical that went straight into the blood and pretty much fixed any age-related ailments they had. None of them was young, but after a few years they didn't look any older. They should've died, but it just didn't happen. It was so unprecedented, and they were so excited, they announced it to everyone. But since it was about two thousand years ago . . . "

"People cried 'magic'?"

"Pretty much. They freaked out, said it was unnatural, claimed the creators should be killed. There were three of them, but only one survived; turned out they weren't immune to being stabbed. The one who survived, she ran away and took as much of the chemical with her as she could. She experimented with it for years, and realised that the more she took, the healthier she got – apart from going colour blind."

Naruto nodded, having expected that to feature. He'd deduced that this mysterious 'chemical' was flowing in his own veins right now.

"So after a while, she gave the chemical to some sick people she came across," Kiba continued. "They must have been really sick, because she gave them a full transfusion of the stuff. That was when the more adverse effects started showing up: the pale skin, the lack of eating . . . but they still thought they had something amazing here, so they tried giving it to the general public again. It was like someone lighting the same fire twice. Half of them were murdered.

"Well, understandably, they got sick of this. They were forced into hiding, poverty, and they thought they deserved more. They rallied a few more people, and somewhere in there the term 'vampire' started being used for them. They'd given up on offering the chemical to whole populations, and instead, they got more cunning. It became all about taking the most valuable humans and using them for influence. Trying to get everyone important on their side."

"But why? Is this a take-over-the-world thing?"

"Oh, did I not really explain it? Sorry. It's more like a survival-of-the-fittest thing."

"And what's any of this got to do with Sasuke?"

Naruto looked down to the pit and was glad to see Sasuke again, visible and running at a remarkable speed.

"I'm getting to that," answered Kiba grimly. "We have to exercise control over humans. If they die, obviously we run out of our only food source and die too – me being the only exception – and believe me, they've almost killed themselves a _lot._ There have always been just enough of us watching to intervene, recruiting anyone who could stop a disaster from happening. But we can't keep it up. Humans are developing too fast; if we don't do something, they'll find us and kill us, then they'll die too. So a long time ago, we realised we needed to do something drastic."

A lump formed in Naruto's throat. He didn't like where this was going. "So you're planning to kill all humans?"

"No! Weren't you listening, dummy? We _need _humans. But maybe within a century or so, we're going to have to come out and take control of everything humans have ever touched, for their own good and ours."

"Has anyone ever mentioned that this sounds super evil?"

"Hey, it's not our fault that the whole species is doomed without us. We know it won't be well-received, though, so unfortunately we're preparing for a fight."

"A fight."

"Quite a big fight."

"This is _clearly_ super evil."

Kiba rolled his eyes, _this is going nowhere _written plainly on his face. "You asked about Sasuke, I'm telling you. He's leading the fight when it happens. We've always known it was coming, we just didn't know when. Now we know it's getting closer, and with all the weapons humans have now, we're expecting it to be pretty brutal. I hope you'll be used to death by then."

Naruto felt stricken. Sasuke's swift, graceful movement below made him now feel sick to his stomach – it was suddenly blindingly obvious that each motion was a motion preparing to kill. _He _hadn't stood a chance when attacked by Sasuke. What chance did other humans have?

His horror must have shown on his face, because Kiba said, "But don't worry about any of this. You might not even be experienced enough to do anything by then. I shouldn't have told you. Come on; let me show you something that'll cheer you up. I'm guessing you desperately need it."

At first Naruto didn't want to go, but in spite of all this, it was still impossible to look at Kiba and think of him as an evil murderer. He was so human, so friendly . . . and if he didn't crave blood, did that mean maybe he hadn't killed anyone after all? Maybe that was true, and Naruto was nervous around all the other vampires because he could sense a killer instinct in them.

If Kiba wasn't like the rest of them, maybe he was the best possible friend down here.

As he nodded his assent and began numbly following Kiba again, Naruto thought of Sasuke, down in that pit, training for unspeakable things. Was he nervous around Sasuke? If he wasn't before, he certainly had every right to be now, and he dreaded the next conversation they might have.

"_Hello, Naruto. Did you have a good day?"_

"_Why yes, Sasuke. I found out that you're an insane serial killer about to go on a rampage against all of humanity."_

He imagined Sasuke giving him a look so withering that he actually shrivelled up and died. Logic told him that, student of his or not, he should avoid 'the One' at all costs, for his own wellbeing and sense of morality. But for some reason that didn't feel like a good solution.

Kiba talked about Sasuke the way a teacher talked about the school bully: he had his problems, and even though he was a good guy deep down, you should probably give him a wide berth. But Naruto hadn't seen Sasuke in that light at all, and he didn't enjoy judging people based on someone else's opinion. Sure, if someone had asked him a year ago if he'd thought Sasuke could have killed someone, he probably still would have answered yes. But for whatever reason, Sasuke just didn't scare him.

He wouldn't be asking him to be Best Man at a wedding any time soon, but it was a start.

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**A/N: **Sorry about the lack of Sasuke in this chapter. He needed some time to work the broody thoughts out. But he will return, and some other characters will finally have their turn as well! Review if it pleases you!


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: **Oops, took me two weeks to do this one. To be fair, it is about twice as long as some of the others! But I hope you guys appreciate how amazing this is for me - I'm the slowest writer ever. And with one essay and two exams in the next two weeks, I probably won't be improving. XD Plus, I've also got a oneshot in mind that I want to write, a SasuNaru with a side of Neji/Gaara. Don't judge me. I got addicted to them a long time ago and I don't even know why, but I can't write them with anyone else! Not like Kiba. I can pair him with anyone and it works - Hinata, Shino, Kankuro... What are your bizarre side pairings?

It occurred to me a while ago that maybe I should mention, _this story will contain unfortunate-but-necessary character death. _There's no way around it, even if it kills me. So far I know of two named characters that die, plus a couple of nameless drone characters. But when a story has the threat of an impending war, who knows how many victims there'll be?

Apologies again if there are mistakes. I've learned that I can't type so well at 1 am.

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**Playing Nice**

Even though he had spent the previous hours getting all his frustrations out by training, Sasuke found himself irritable afterwards. This was because he had forgotten to take into account how difficult it would be to locate Naruto again after leaving him outside the hospital before. The idiot had barely been able to walk, so how he'd vanished was anybody's guess.

It took forever to track him down, in part because Sasuke refused point-blank to ask anyone else for assistance, and also because he simply stopped looking at one point; in his anger he convinced himself that it didn't matter if he never found Naruto and that someone else could babysit him. But he soon resumed his search. It was impossible to kid himself that he disliked Naruto as much as he thought he would. And he didn't often like others – normally cool tolerance was the most he could give.

Finally, without any real conviction, Sasuke looked for Naruto all the way back at Inuzuka's hospital ward. He had been picturing Naruto alone and bewildered, unable to get into much trouble, and not once did it occur to him that the boy could make _friends._ Nevertheless, that was what appeared to have happened as he marched inside and found Naruto tearing around the place after Inuzuka, mouth full of what looked like gauze. He was crying out in outrage, and in a very muffled voice, "_Oo se' dis wouldn' hur'!"_

Inuzuka was running away from him effortlessly, laughing. "It doesn't hurt at all, you baby! Grow a pair!" He pulled himself to a stop when he veered around, almost running right into Sasuke. "Oh, hey, dude! Glad you found us, because your charge needs a time-out for trying to attack his doctor!"

"_I show 'oo a ti' ou'! Or as ba' as a 'ooman dentis'!"_

Inuzuka ducked behind Sasuke and grabbed his arms, steering him like a shield. "Sorry Sasuke, you're my defence."

"What did he say?" Sasuke grumbled, not thrilled at all with the situation.

"Told me I'm as bad as a human dentist. He doesn't mean it. Deep down he loves me."

"I DO _NO'_!"

Naruto actually dived at Inuzuka in a brutal tackle, but he wasn't fast enough: Inuzuka twisted around and dodged, getting himself cleanly out of the way – and leaving Sasuke right in the line of fire.

Sasuke felt the wind get knocked out of him as Naruto's head crashed into his stomach like a cannonball. He fell backwards and his back crunched surprisingly painfully on the rocky ground, hurting him for the first time in months. Ordinarily only Gaara was able to hurt him.

"Oh, shit! Sorry, I'm so sorry, Sasuke!" The gauze had fallen out of Naruto's mouth on impact. "I didn't mean to – oh, hey, I can speak properly! You're right, Kiba, it doesn't hurt at all."

"Oh, _now _you admit it!" Inuzuka rolled his eyes and emerged from wherever he'd hidden.

Sasuke grunted as he heaved Naruto off him, trying to get his breathing back to normal. He saw that now both Naruto and Inuzuka were biting back laughter, and wondered what exactly he'd fallen into. He'd thought Naruto was angry, but they were behaving like it had all been a stupid joke. Sasuke didn't do jokes.

"What the hell is going on?" he growled, sitting up sorely.

Inuzuka grinned and answered, "Well, I put my foot in it and got Naruto a bit upset, so to make it up to him I gave him fangs."

"Fangs?"

Another of Kiba's jobs was to chisel some of a vampire's teeth down to sharp points before they went hunting for the first time. Those teeth also got a small incision made into them, creating an artificial poison gland, activated by pressure from the tongue. Fortunately Monster Blood made one immune to the paralysis poison's effect. However, fangs weren't normally bestowed upon someone until immediately before their first mission, a few years into their training.

Sasuke couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance._ He _hadn't tried to use friendship as a tool to get things earlier than he should have. "How lucky for him."

Evidently the subtext didn't go unnoticed. "Come on," chided Inuzuka. "You're not one to talk when it comes to breaking rules."

That was . . . not untrue, Sasuke knew. He turned his eyes onto the still-grinning Naruto and felt his bitterness ebb away at the edges. That smile was extremely charismatic, and the main reason Sasuke had run off to the arena before. His anger was what made him strong, and if simply looking at Naruto could dispel it, he needed to be wary.

"So, why're you here, Sasuke?" Naruto asked, opening his mouth extra wide to show off his fangs. "Miss me?"

"No," Sasuke retorted shortly. "I was assigned as your mentor, which means I'm stuck with you whether I like it or not. Missing you had nothing to do with it."

"Okay, okay. Geeze, you took that way more seriously than I expected. It was just a joke." The charming smile faded. Good.

"Sasuke doesn't do jokes," said Inuzuka, also not grinning any more. He was looking Sasuke right in the eye, with an emotion that wasn't really associated with him. Sasuke couldn't even recognise it. Disapproval, perhaps? Fine, let him disapprove.

One long pause and several dirty glares later, they all seemed to reach a silent agreement that Naruto would go along with Sasuke, though for what, none of them was quite sure yet. He couldn't get dumped right back in front of Gaara, no matter how tempting the idea was to Sasuke, nor was he yet in good enough condition to do anything productive. Still, Sasuke was firm in his decision that Naruto wasn't going to hang around here any more.

Before they departed, Inuzuka took Sasuke aside and spoke to him in a low murmur. "Sasuke, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Planning to play a bunch of mind games on him, or whatever it is you're doing. I know the look on your face, and I know you're getting ready to mess with him, and I don't want you to do that. I actually like him, and more importantly, he likes you."

Sasuke didn't dignify that with an answer. It wasn't that he didn't believe it; it was that it was boringly familiar. Practically everyone liked him upon first impression, no matter how little he tried. Honestly, he would have been more moved if Naruto hated his guts.

"Not in the same like-you-despite-your-head-being-up-your-ass way that I do," Inuzuka added, as if reading his mind. "He doesn't even _know _your head's up your ass."

"I don't have to listen to this," Sasuke snapped, insults not sitting well with him. Inuzuka didn't stop.

"One conversation with you is easily enough to tell someone what you're like, but he's got a completely different idea. Did you develop a new personality, or are you just lying to him? You didn't even tell him that you're the One, so forgive me for being a bit confused."

"He's my student. I can tell him whatever I want."

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I've had to deal with every vampire in here intimately, and I don't think you appreciate just how different this one is. He's a good kid. You were never good. The Sabakus were never good. I've never been good. Don't ruin the only thing down here that isn't a little bit rotten."

Sasuke was glaring. "I really don't appreciate you lecturing me about something I haven't even done, all because I apparently gave a nice guy a bad look. The Council wouldn't have given him to me if I was incompetent. I notice _you _haven't ever had a student."

"I'm a werewolf! I don't have victims!"

"He's still not yours to protect."

With a heavy groan of exasperation, Inuzuka finally relented. He said, "Fine. Do whatever you want, but if you really feel the need to screw someone over, at least _think _about it not being Naruto."

So Sasuke left, Naruto in tow, who was clearly feeling awkward. He fidgeted as he walked and didn't look Sasuke in the eye. The latter didn't bother Sasuke, but he did find the fidgeting annoying.

"What?" he asked irritably.

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"So I wouldn't be _playing mind games _with you if I told you to shut up?"

Naruto gulped. "Nope. Not screwing me over at all."

Sasuke stopped and gave him a frown. "You were listening to us." He quickened his pace, just so that Naruto would have to struggle.

"No! Well, yeah, but not intentionally, I swear! I guess I still haven't gotten used to having super-senses." Naruto grinned sheepishly as he kept up. Again, Sasuke felt his anger diminishing without his consent, and he heated up because of it.

So what if Naruto was nice? That didn't mean anything for the vampire community, and it definitely didn't mean anything for _him. _Nice couldn't survive here. They had a purpose; it was gritty, but necessary, and they all needed an amount of hardness to carry it out. If Naruto didn't have that . . .

"Where are we going?" the boy asked.

Sasuke hadn't decided. Going through passages that so far only led to more passages, he debated once more the possibility of sending Naruto back to Gaara. So what if he'd just come out of a coma? He was fit enough to gambol about with Inuzuka, and it would be by far the best way to harden him up. But there would be a cost: that crestfallen look, the dejection and fear on his face. It seemed a small price, but Sasuke didn't want to see it, and he didn't think beating it out of Naruto would work.

At the next intersection, he took a left turn that sloped downwards, the direction away from Gaara. Naruto must have recognised it, because relief plastered itself on his face, which gave Sasuke a warm sensation in his stomach. Maybe there was something to be said for having someone actually like him.

"I'm taking you to meet people," he responded, making the decision on the spot. "If you can't do any training, you might as well get to know everyone you'll be working with."

"Oh, awesome!" Naruto exclaimed. "I can do that. I'm good at meeting people. Well, I'm really not – most people get the worst first impression of me ever, and then I have to work around that for ages – but here's hoping vampires like me more than humans, right?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Soon, the long, downward tunnel along which they were walking evened out and became filled with something he knew Naruto hadn't heard yet down here: echoes of chatter, of a score or more voices talking at once in a lively buzz of activity. They were approaching the deepest cavern of their network, the one place where stony silence wasn't the firm etiquette: the place where everyone went to wind down after a day of hunting, training or teaching.

When they reached the mouth of the cavern, Naruto's jaw dropped. "Woah. You – you have a _bar _down here?"

It wasn't a building like Inuzuka's house, but clearly over time it had become worn and familiar enough that it was no longer recognisable as a big, foreboding cave. Enormous boulders had been cut and sanded into tables and stools. A hollowed-out cube the size of a kitchen was right in the centre, acting as a bar counter. And even though no one appeared to be staffing, the dozens of patrons held drinks in hands.

"It isn't really a bar," said Sasuke. "For one thing, it's water or nothing. We don't digest alcohol, and we couldn't supply it even if we did."

"Right. I can handle that." Naruto gave a single, firm nod to show that he understood. "So, since it's been over a year since I last had water, I'm thinking I'll pull up a chair. Or a rock. Whatever."

And with that, he keenly joined the throng at the bar, blending in and greeting strangers like he'd known them all his life. Most responded with only a bewildered furrowing of the eyebrows, but some met him cheerfully and began offering introductions. It was astounding how quickly it all happened, like a day with Inuzuka had turned Naruto into a social machine.

"No way," a voice off to Sasuke's left said audibly. "What the hell are you doing down here, oh great One?"

Sasuke turned to the speaker – Kankuro, Temari and Gaara's brother. He was leering smugly, as he often did.

"Official business," Sasuke answered, hardly convincing, but knowing Kankuro wouldn't rebuke. This was actually the first time he had come here since his own mentor dragged him centuries ago, so some surprise at his presence wasn't unwarranted. If anything, he expected to receive a bit more attention, but it seemed Naruto was hogging it all.

Kankuro, nothing like his siblings, laughed and slapped Sasuke on the back (which he did _not_ appreciate). "Official business! Damn, they really do give you the best jobs, don't they? The rest of us have to come here _after _business hours. Eh, perks of being the Messiah, I guess. Well, gonna join us pretending to get drunk like your blonde boy?"

Sure enough, the largest table was now occupied by Naruto, along with at least ten people whom Sasuke recognised and five he didn't. Nodding stiffly, he walked over to it with Kankuro, very aware of how uneasy he felt in this situation. He'd never bothered befriending any of these people before, since they were essentially his subjects and would probably die in the upcoming war. What was the point?

Yet here he was, uncomfortable and surrounded by others, easily able to get up and leave . . . but he wasn't going to leave. Even though it would have been immensely satisfying to do the opposite of what Inuzuka told him to do, something was definitely compelling him to be nicer to Naruto, starting with not abandoning him here.

_Not that he'd feel very abandoned, _he thought, a little resentfully.

He had expected everyone to have as much disdain for Naruto as he did, but it wasn't happening at all. It looked like they were all happy to be his friends. It didn't make any sense in Sasuke's head.

Someone thrust a glass of water under his nose, and he hesitantly accepted it. He settled in to the best of his ability, listening as Naruto openly told everybody all about his life, beginning to end.

"So, I was born in 1990. Anyone else here alive then?"

* * *

"Okay. There was Temari and Ino, the two girls, then Shikamaru was between them – which one was he with, again?"

"Temari."

"Right. Then there was Shino, who I remember because Kiba mentioned him, and next to him was Kankuro, then you, then . . . then I've forgotten the others. Who was next to you?"

"I don't remember."

"Bullshit!" Naruto declared. "We only just left!"

"_You _don't remember."

"I only just met them!"

"Well, there were a lot of them there that I didn't know before, either. I don't know everyone."

Having no concept of time underground, Naruto had stayed at the bar for an absurdly long time, not discouraged when more and more of his new acquaintances retired for the night. Sasuke eventually had to drag him out with a bad lie about rookies having a curfew. It had done nothing to quell Naruto's cheerfulness, nor his urge to talk.

"Well, you should! How do you expect to be their leader if you don't?"

This made Sasuke pause. "So Inuzuka did tell you."

"Yeah. He seemed surprised you hadn't."

It was true that Sasuke wasn't shy about flaunting his position – if the situation called for it. Naruto didn't need to be told _everything_ on his first day. Most new vampires adapted quickly enough to their plans, seeing the sense and (ironically) the humanity behind them, but Naruto hardly had the brainpower the rest of them did.

"What do you think about it?" Sasuke asked. Naruto shrugged.

"Honestly? I think your whole take-over-the-humans-for-the-greater-good thing is so twisted that you must have gotten it from a B-grade movie. It's stupid and it's going to kill people and obviously go wrong. But . . . "

"But?"

He shook his head. "Forget it. You don't want to hear the rest."

Sasuke was tempted to say, "_Fine,_" but he didn't. "Try me."

"Okay." Naruto looked uneasy. "You've got this big, evil destiny or whatever, but I just can't picture you doing all that. I know I haven't known you very long, but you don't seem evil. You're a bit surly, but I think you're a good guy."

_A good guy. _Sasuke had never been called that in his life. His first instinct was to refute it. That wasn't him. Hadn't Inuzuka just said today that he'd _never _been good? If anyone else had questioned his ability to do his duties, he'd have beaten them to within an inch of their life. Naruto had no idea what he was talking about.

But Sasuke . . . was okay with that. It was a bit unsettling, but not bad. Still, he didn't dwell on it.

He directed Naruto to the private area where he slept, an alcove in yet another area the boy didn't know, and showed him how to make himself comfortable. Naruto wasn't too thrilled with this, and said he'd rather go back to the hospital because it, at least, had a real bed; one last threat of sending him to Gaara stopped his complaining pretty quickly.

Then, for the second time that day, Sasuke left Naruto behind so he could gather his thoughts. He went in the direction of Inuzuka's house, preparing for a long night.

* * *

Traffic was so terrible that it was already sunset by the time Sakura Haruno arrived home. She tossed her keys on her coffee table and collapsed on the couch, legs exhausted after a full day interning at the hospital. She needed to book herself a massage or something, if only she could find a free moment. But she was busy tomorrow, and the next day, and after that she started getting twelve-hour shifts . . . ugh, why did she have this insatiable urge to help people all the time?

Just as she began to wonder whether she could be bothered cooking, she sensed movement behind her. It was a small apartment, and she knew it like the back of her hand, so when she whirled around she immediately saw the source of the disturbance.

It wasn't hard to spot. There was a man standing beside her front door, inches from where she'd just come in.

Sakura gasped and jumped to her feet, weariness forgotten. Her heart raced. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. The man didn't move, but he looked like he was surveying her critically. He was dark-haired, dressed in decent but practical clothing, and obviously good-looking despite his very uneven complexion.

But how he looked didn't matter. The bastard was in her house!

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded as loudly and aggressively as she could. She hoped her neighbours were home.

The man clearly wasn't intimidated, but he didn't try to come any closer. He lifted his hands – which at first made Sakura freeze in panic – and raised them into a gesture of surrender.

"I'm not here for you," he said, voice low and smooth.

"What is that supposed to mean? Sakura grabbed for something to use as a weapon; her fingers found a knife sitting on a dirty plate from the night before. "You're trying to rob me? If you think I'm going to run scared, you'd better think again!"

Her knees were knocking, but she knew any sign of fear would only embolden a bad guy.

"I'm not robbing you. I've got a message to pass on to you." The man looked her dead in the eye. "From Naruto."

The knife slipped from Sakura's hand. Her heart did a wild leap as she thought of her best friend, missing for over a year. She had feared the worst, and been pained by the thought of never knowing what happened to him.

"Where is he? Is he okay?"

"He's okay," the man answered. "He just wanted to make sure you knew that he hasn't done anything stupid, and he's not in any kind of trouble. He just had to leave, and it was sudden enough that he didn't get the chance to explain it to you."

Sakura listened, but much as she wanted to believe that Naruto was safe, there was no way she could trust the vague word of a shady stranger. When he made a move to leave, she called out, "Wait! If you expect me to believe that, I'm going to need a lot more information. There's no way Naruto would go away without telling anyone, and then giving no word for a _year_. His apartment wasn't even touched. And who are you, exactly? Why would he finally get in contact with me, via a stranger?"

The man stopped. He nodded briefly, like he had expected this reaction. "I assume you know already that I'm not going to tell you everything, but I do want to convince you."

"Then tell me, why hasn't he contacted me?"

"He isn't allowed to contact anyone. It's . . . against the rules."

Rules? That made it sound like this was a game of some sort. Was he on a reality show or something? It seemed ludicrous, but also like the kind of thing Naruto would do.

"All right. So why now? Why are you here?"

This one made the man pause. It gave Sakura the chance to see that he wasn't, in fact, much older than she was, if at all. That made him less frightening.

"Naruto . . . was sure you'd think something bad had happened, and he seemed to think he was failing you by letting that happen. I'm trying to do something nice for him."

Sakura felt a pang as she imagined Naruto thinking he'd let her down – and another one as she realised that, just a little bit, she had thought it herself. "And – and who are you?"

"Sasuke."

"Just Sasuke?"

"There's only so much I can say."

She bit her lip, still unsure, but hoping against hope that this Sasuke was telling the truth. In the back of her mind, it occurred to her that this wasn't at all what she expected a break-in to be like.

"Sasuke," she said softly, trying the name out. "I – I want to believe you. I want to believe Naruto is fine. I'm sure he wouldn't make friends with someone who would come here and lie to me. You are his friend, right?"

"I suppose I am."

"Then . . . prove it. I know him better than anyone. If you really are here in his best interest, show me you know him. Then I'll accept what you're saying."

When Sasuke didn't say anything, Sakura was afraid she'd caught him out in a lie. But eventually, he began to speak.

"He's twenty-one. His parents died when he was thirteen. Before he left he was working as an assistant and looking into becoming a vet." He frowned. "But that isn't what you want to hear. I could have found that out on my own easily. You want me to say . . . that people find him likeable, but not from first impressions; that in spite of this, he goes out of his way to make the biggest, most overt first impressions on everyone he meets; and that even if you're extremely spiteful towards him, he'll just call you 'a bit surly, but still a good guy'."

Even if it was all for her benefit, Sakura was touched. While there was no emotion in Sasuke's voice, it rang true enough that she knew he wasn't lying.

"And?" she pressed.

The tiniest hint of a smile played about Sasuke's lips, and it really struck Sakura this time how handsome he was. "And he's an insufferable brat who asks too many questions and won't leave well enough alone."

Sakura made a choked sound that was both a laugh and a sob. Oh yes, this man knew Naruto, all right. And he was still his normal, incorrigible self. Whatever secrets were being kept from her, her best friend's safety was all that mattered. She wanted to know more, but she could handle having a few gaps in her knowledge.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Say hello to him from me. Tell him, 'Love you and see you as soon as possible'."

Sasuke nodded and wordlessly let himself out of the apartment. Even the fabric of his clothes made no noise as he walked. When the door clicked shut behind him, Sakura's legs gave way and she crumpled in a heap on the couch. Small tears were in the corners of her eyes, happy and terrified and relieved. Finally, she had some kind of closure. Naruto was fine. Somewhere.

Completely forgetting about dinner, she lay down and hoped this wouldn't seem insane to her when she woke up the next morning.

* * *

**A/N: **Oh, Sasuke. It just wouldn't be him if he weren't nasty to everyone but developing a soft spot for Naruto. In fact, Naruto is just a 'soft spot' character in general, isn't he? He seems to fill that role for every other character. Review if it pleases you!


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: **Well, it wasn't exactly a weekly update. Sorry! I had some exams to study for, and then to procrastinate on them I said, "I'll just write a little Kiba/Kankuro oneshot to tide me over, then back to studying!" Well, that little oneshot ended up 23 pages long. On the plus side, it's posted! You should totally go read it, even if it's not your pairing. It wasn't my pairing until, like, a week ago! And then, after you read it, you should review it. I love reviews. I don't mean to sound like a review whore, but I am _totally a review whore._

* * *

**Blank Slate**

"I needed that arm!" complained Naruto, barely wincing at his now dislocated shoulder. Sasuke had to admit, he had become very good at tolerating his injuries.

"Don't rely on anything. You never know when you won't have it," Gaara responded impassively from the other end of the arena.

Almost a full year had passed again, and Naruto was now on his fifth visit to Gaara. Like everyone else, he improved dramatically, the terror of landing back in hospital a very strong incentive. Supernatural speed was always the second skill learned right after using their new sight, and once they had mastered both, it was only a matter of time until they started going on missions. Mostly they were simple scouting missions, observations; real hunting was kept to a minimum unless it was an emergency. Shortage of blood was never a problem as Inuzuka kept a plentiful supply from past victims.

Naruto was a surprisingly quick study when it came to physical tasks. On his second visit here – to which Sasuke had to practically drag him, kicking and screaming – he avoided Gaara's onslaught for ten whole minutes. He made it almost an hour before breaking a bone.

If there was a flaw in his practice (and there most definitely _was_), it was that he wouldn't shut up. Every single time he came, he spent the whole time giving a running commentary of his and Gaara's actions.

"_He's in front of me, now he's behind me, and now in front again! I think I'll just – jump – over here, where he can't get me. Ha, ha! Outsmarted you, Gaara! Oh, crap. I think he heard me."_

And after every session, without fail, he would ask Gaara to come to the bar for a drink with the rest of 'the gang', as he now called them. The first time it was amusing, but now Sasuke kind of wanted to beat him over the head with a pipe. Naruto just didn't understand that you didn't become friends with Gaara, even if the other had told him as much. Gaara ignored anything that resembled small talk and continued to beat him to a pulp.

A dislocated shoulder was the first injury Naruto had received this session. He got one last time, too, and he had been so stunned that he actually just stopped and stared at it in disbelief. Since he was distracted, Gaara came in and dislocated his other shoulder.

Naruto didn't make that mistake again. "Fine, one arm it is. On the plus side, thanks for not going for my legs – that'd make it way harder to keep going."

Gaara just lunged forward, so Naruto made a face and ran away. Then he did a quick, staggered movement and turned around, aiming his own punch to Gaara's stomach. It didn't hit, of course, but it was rare that anyone had the guts to even try.

Not long later, when Gaara tonelessly announced, "We're done," Naruto hobbled over to Sasuke, who was watching from the side, as usual.

"Hey, Sasuke," he said. "Think you could help me out here? This may not look like much, but it hurts like hell." He dangled his dead arm uselessly.

Sasuke shook his head. "Not after last time. You're on your own."

"Come on, you can't hold that against me forever! I was suffering grievous bodily harm. I was bound to swear a little bit."

"You didn't swear once. You did, however, 'hope that someone jammed a skewer up me until it came out of my throat, so you could burn every organ it stabbed on the way'. That was right, wasn't it?"

"It may have been similar," Naruto grumbled.

"And that's why I'm not doing you any more favours."

Naruto wasn't the only one who had improved over the months. Sasuke talked more, could occasionally tolerate the presence of others, and there was even one time in March where he actually laughed at something, which Naruto would never let him forget. He had always been eloquent and articulate, but before, every word was meticulously planned out in his head before he said it. Now he could have a normal conversation without pausing to think every few seconds.

"Fine. _Gaara!"_ Naruto hollered suddenly, as Gaara had almost left the arena. "Be a buddy and pop my arm back in before we go out for drinks?"

Every time. Sasuke rolled his eyes as Gaara predictably continued walking away without a second glance. Naruto groaned dramatically as his options vanished and he finally accepted that he'd be fixing himself.

It wasn't pretty, of course. He reached over and grabbed his biceps with his other hand, right below where the joint was sticking out at a gruesome, backward angle, and wrenched the arm into place. Sasuke couldn't hear it thud sickeningly back into the socket as Naruto screamed, "_Son of a – "_

But then it was over, like nothing had gone wrong at all. The two of them headed back to Sasuke's quarters, which out of the generosity of his heart, they had been sharing. In his spare time, Naruto had actually dug out one of the cave walls, so that the area was the size of a decent room instead of a cramped cubby. Sasuke had to admit he was impressed – both at Naruto's tenacity and the fact that he had avoided a huge tunnel collapse. It wouldn't have looked good if the One's pupil single-handedly crushed their entire civilisation.

Not that Naruto was still a pupil, really. He knew the ropes, knew the rules (even if he endlessly complained about them), and was friends with just about everyone he'd met. But he still hung around with Sasuke, occasionally even training with him, and they never really lost their mentor-student vibe. Or maybe that was just Sasuke's view on it; maybe Naruto thought of him as any other friend.

When they got to the quarters, Sasuke immediately sat and reached for the top of a pile of books, a recent addition to his sparse number of possessions. Every now and again, when he went above ground, he stole an armful of the latest novels from a bookstore. Last year he'd had that opportunity, when he borrowed blood from Inuzuka to visit that Sakura girl, so now he was catching up on what 2012 had to offer. He was a year behind, true, but he'd bet that no other vampire – with the possible exception of Inuzuka himself – had read a single book in the last century.

"I don't get it," said Naruto. "You're always working. Training with Gaara, training alone – I still have to drag you to the bar. And you don't sleep, you _read." _

Sasuke glanced from over the top of his book. "I have to keep up."

"So you can communicate and integrate when the whole evil takeover happens. I know. But still, let your hair down once in a while."

Naruto's opinion on the vampires' plans hadn't changed. He still threw around the word 'evil' a lot. Some of the older residents just shrugged it off as youthful impetuousness, but others weren't so forgiving. A notable example was when, in a fit of pique, he'd called Shikamaru "just another one of the stupid, soulless bastards" at the bar, and Temari marched over and punched him right in the face, knocking three of his teeth loose. Everyone present had winced, but they all knew he deserved it.

"This _is _letting my hair down," Sasuke responded. "It's not exactly heavy reading."

The pile certainly wasn't made up of textbooks. Amongst the already-read portion were _The Night Circus, The Sense of an Ending, _and even a little one called _Fifty Shades of Grey. _When Naruto inquired, Sasuke had answered that it was not to his taste. Still to read were _Game of Thrones _and, in a move that would delight Inuzuka, the newest edition of _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare._

"I still can't believe you've never read some of these. You're three hundred and nobody's ever forced you to pick up _Lord of the Flies? _It's not exactly recent, dude."

"I just take what's there. I hadn't seen it before."

"How weird is it that I know more about this stuff than you?" Naruto grinned. "And I'm a dropout! If it weren't for all the war and killing, I could do your job, easy."

Sasuke frowned at him. "That might be all well and good now, but what about in ten years? Or fifty? And after the war, humans will still exist, writing, changing their language. If you don't keep up, you might lose language entirely."

"Is that what happened to Lee?"

"Exactly." Lee, barely a hundred and twenty years old, had thrown himself so deeply into his physical prowess that his communication skills took a mighty blow. He spoke with such flowery 19th Century syntax that at best he sounded poetic; at worst, barely intelligible.

Naruto looked thoughtful. "Maybe you're right. You know, a while ago Sakura got me to read _A Clockwork Orange_, and it's written in a crazy, fake-future English. Freaking impossible to understand most of it. I'd hate it if real language did that." He suddenly gave a morose sigh. "You know, I hardly read at all until Sakura made me."

"You're talking about her again," Sasuke said irritably. He had every right to be irritated: hardly a day went by without Naruto having a sulk about not being allowed to go and see the girl. It was absurd how easily he had accepted being a vampire, a hunter, trained only to kill and avoid being killed, while still unable to stop clinging to this one shred of his old life. He couldn't have been the first vampire to leave a human behind, yet he certainly acted like it.

Sasuke never told him about that evening when he himself paid Sakura a visit. He convinced himself it was better that way. And Naruto never noticed anything amiss, not even the fact that Sasuke returned that night completely visible. But then, the only other one that Naruto regularly hung out with was Inuzuka, who was almost always visible to all. Being a werewolf, he could get a steady supply of animal blood without arousing suspicion. In fact, Sasuke suspected that Inuzuka's number of above-ground wanderings exceeded even his own.

"Sorry," Naruto grumbled, not sorry at all. "I can't just forget about her."

"You have to."

"Look, I can't, okay? Don't be a jerk."

"Will you still be moping in a hundred years, after she's dead?"

"Shut up! Just . . . stop it. Fine. I won't talk about her again."

Sasuke shut his book, unable to focus on it now. "Can't you just spend the night with Ino to get your mind off it or something? I'm sure she'd be more than happy to do it. Or Tenten, though she doesn't like you quite as much."

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"Surely another girl could prove a good enough distraction."

"Hold up. Are you assuming Sakura is my – _was_ – my girlfriend?"

Until the question was asked . . . yes, Sasuke had thought exactly that. Hadn't Sakura herself said to pass on the message that she loved him? And Naruto, with all his whining, certainly had all the hallmarks of a love-struck little boy.

"Oh, no." Naruto shook his head profusely. "You're totally wrong there. I don't – I'm not like that."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Forget it."

"No, tell me. What aren't you like?"

"I can't talk to a three-hundred-year-old about this!" Naruto looked flustered.

"In a minute I'm going to lose interest," Sasuke threatened.

"Okay, okay . . . but look, I don't know what your eighteenth-century opinions are on this. I'm gay."

"Gay?"

"Yes. Very, very gay. Any normal person can see it from space. Queer. Homosexual."

"I know what gay means," snapped Sasuke. "I'm just surprised."

It hadn't occurred to him at all, actually, and now he was wondering in annoyance if everyone knew except him. Well, it wasn't as if he'd spent a good portion of his time thinking about it. What was Naruto's love life to him? Nothing, of course.

"You were lucky," he said at last.

"For being gay?"

"For being gay in the time and area that you were alive. There were many other time periods in which you would have been much worse off, and many other places, too. Especially if people could 'see it from space'."

"Oh." Naruto scratched his head in thought. "And do you know that from personal experience? I mean – " His eyes widened, like he just realised he'd accidentally asked a really blunt question, and he added lamely, "If you don't mind me asking."

So he wanted to know if Sasuke was gay as well. It took Sasuke a long time to answer this, not because it offended him (though really, he doubted that anyone but Naruto would be brainless enough to blurt out a question like that), but because he actually needed to take time to think about his answer. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he couldn't remember if there had ever been a time when sexuality played any role in his life. Certainly not his vampire life, and everything before that was a distant memory, but he was still quite sure that with his family being who they were, relationships weren't a priority when he grew up.

Naruto was staring at him nosily. "Sasuke? You're, uh . . . drifting off a bit there. You okay? I guess you don't have to say if you don't want – but I'm pretty sure that'd be as good as an admission."

"Just give me a minute," Sasuke said, a bit of a growl to his voice. Naruto looked incredulous.

"Wait, are you saying . . . you don't _know? _How? How do you live for as long as you have without figuring out something so basic? I'm sorry, that's crazy. Crazy! You're telling me you've never been attracted to someone? Slept with someone? _Kissed _someone?"

Sasuke didn't say anything. He didn't like being ridiculed.

"Wow," Naruto said. "I can't believe it. Are you just nothing, then? Asexual? I hear that's a thing. Either way, you must have had the weirdest life ever, to have never experienced this stuff. Were you raised in a parish?"

"Quite the opposite."

"A _brothel?"_

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Naruto was always trying to pry more information about his past out of him, and it never worked. "I suppose I did have an abnormal life, but that was a long time ago. I guess I've kept myself occupied with things other than sex for so long that it stopped being relevant to me. If it ever was."

"Crazy," Naruto said again. "Well, if you ever want to figure it all out, I'm happy to help. I'm awesome at first kisses. I'm kidding," he added hastily as Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "Not about me being awesome, but about the . . . other bit. I'm not hitting on you, is what I'm trying to say. Unless you're interested. Which you're not. I'm just making this worse, aren't I?"

But he had a grin plastered on his face, like he was enjoying his own personal joke. He wasn't really being awkward at all, just making light of the conversation. Unfortunately, even though Sasuke could see this, it didn't make him feel any better about what he perceived to be one long jape at his expense.

"I'll think about it," he muttered. It was a lie; he intended to forget about this as soon as possible.

After he returned to his book and it became clear that the time for talk was over, Naruto announced that he was going to drag his battered body down to the bar. Sasuke declined to join him. He didn't get very far, though, as both of them suddenly heard heavy footsteps approaching. Sasuke recognised the slow, arrhythmic steps as those of the physically-impaired Hayate. He only left his post when he was on official Council business, but Sasuke didn't bother offering him a formal greeting. 'Council business' usually meant he was about to be lectured, even though he hadn't killed anyone since Naruto.

"Who're you?" asked Naruto when Hayate stepped into the quarters.

"He's the Third's messenger," Sasuke answered, frowning. "What do they want, Hayate?"

Hayate gave a small cough. "The Council wants you to come to them immediately to discuss a briefing."

Sasuke sat up straighter. "They're giving me a mission?"

"Not just you. Both of you."

Surprise registered on Naruto's face as he heard this, before he beamed with excitement. "You mean I get to go back up to the real world? Excellent! Oh man, that's the best news I've heard in forever! My first mission! Yeah!"

While he whooped and cheered, Sasuke murmured to Hayate in a voice that said he was not thrilled with the idea: "If this is a hunting job, Naruto isn't ready for it. I can do it alone."

But Hayate shook his head. "They were very clear about having him as well. The Third received other recommendations that he was right for this mission."

_Other recommendations? _"Whose?"

Who had more say about what Naruto did than Sasuke?

"I didn't ask," said Hayate, shrugging. "Regardless, you wouldn't be allowed to do this one alone. It's high priority and high risk. Partner required."

"What is it?"

"You're taking another shot at the Hyuuga family."

* * *

**A/N: **Some wonderful, wonderful action next chapter. Along with wonderful, wonderful Neji. I'm currently watching Sasuke Retrieval again and fangirling the crap out of everyone. Anyway, hope you're enjoying this! Reviews always appreciated, especially these enormous ones people are leaving. I've never successfully done a multichapter story on here before, so it's not at all something I'm used to, but it's amazing!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: **So, clearly I'm just a big fat liar, about pretty much everything to do with this story. I've obviously erased the part of my brain that remembers me saying, "Updates every week! Yay! I'm so responsible now!" In addition, somehow, this chapter _actually contains no Neji whatsoever. _I don't know how I did that. I didn't realise the lead-up would take so long.

Instead, all you get is an emotionally-confused Naruto. I hope that's just as good.

* * *

**The Homecoming He Expected**

As they walked towards the Elders' hall, Sasuke explained to Naruto why the mention of the name Hyuuga brought a grim look to everyone's face. So far Naruto had been running under the impression that compared to vampires, humans were all laughably fragile, but apparently that wasn't always the way it worked.

"The Hyuugas are an old family," Sasuke told him. "I didn't know them, but their ancestors were around when we were. They've always been the highest tier family, rich and powerful – _very _powerful. We've been after them for decades, if not centuries, to get one of them on our side for the war, but we haven't been able to get close to them. The Third decided around fifty years ago that we should start targeting their children. Back then, the family had twin boys, young, but they were already being trained in the business. They do international surveillance, so you can see why one of them would be useful for us."

Naruto made a little sound of discomfort. The idea of kids being a part of this vampire world made him extremely uneasy. "I don't suppose the Third changed his mind about the children?"

"Definitely not. It was a good strategy, and from what I hear, it took the Hyuugas completely by surprise. We almost got one of them, but whoever'd been scouting out their house didn't do a very good job. Apparently someone activated some kind of lockdown feature, and all the house's entrances were sealed. We didn't even know anyone had that sort of technology. Shikamaru was the one on the mission, and if it had been anyone else, they wouldn't have made it out."

"What do you mean?"

"He was trapped in the house with the family. They may not have known what he was, but they knew someone was after them and I don't doubt they would have killed him if they had the chance. He could have easily snatched one of the children, but instead he concentrated all his efforts on breaking out. He wouldn't have had time to do both."

Naruto frowned. "This is the Shikamaru I know?"

"He's actually better at his jobs than he'd like anyone to believe."

"So why am _I _doing this seemingly life-threatening mission when I have no idea what I'm doing? Not that I'm complaining."

Sasuke paused, the only sounds being the quiet echoes of their footsteps. "I don't know."

Well, _that _was a good vote of confidence. Though really, Naruto couldn't bring himself to feel afraid, because truthfully, he was just excited about getting active and above ground again. Apart from the shoulder that he'd only just popped back into place, he had never felt physically better in his entire life. He was constantly bursting with energy, training with Gaara showed him that his stamina was now amazing, and he still managed to surprise himself with his awesome strength. He _definitely _felt ready for a mission.

When they reached the hall, Hayate, who had been boredly walking in front of them, waved them in right away. The Third was waiting for them inside; it was a bit weird for Naruto to finally see the man who'd told him two years ago, _"You are dead, Naruto Uzumaki." _He looked old. Which was strange, Naruto realised, because why should he look old when nobody else aged a day? Not that he looked like an old man, exactly, but his face was definitely creased and wizened . . . maybe he was just really, really tired.

"Sasuke," he acknowledged, inclining his head slightly. "And Naruto. I suppose a proper welcome is in order. I've heard interesting stories about your training."

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I've been known to be a bit unorthodox, er . . . your Thirdness."

What did you call the president of vampires? He didn't call Sasuke anything special, but maybe the Elder demanded a lot of formality.

Luckily, the Third laughed. "Now that's a title if ever I head one. I hope it catches on."

"Sarutobi," said Sasuke gruffly. "The mission."

"Oh, eager for orders, eh? That would be a first."

It looked like Sasuke wasn't used to sharp retorts, even from the Third. His eyebrows were furrowed deeply and his face said that he didn't want to be here, but Naruto didn't believe that; from what Kiba told him, Sasuke took any available excuse to go hunting. So what was with the surly expression?

The Third sighed. "But there is a lot to go through, so we should get started. Did Hayate tell you the target?"

"One of the Hyuuga kids again," answered Sasuke.

"So there's a new generation of kids?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, three of them."

"But," said the Third, "we won't make the same mistake as last time. You're to go after the elder girl only. Leave the boy out of this at all costs."

"I'm better than Kidomaru."

"Who's Kidomaru?" asked Naruto.

"Sasuke, no one here doubts your ability. It's why we're sending you. But we can't afford to underestimate a Hyuuga, any Hyuuga. You're to go after only the weakest, and be careful of her as well. Have you slept?"

"No."

"Who's Kidomaru?" Naruto repeated, louder. Sasuke flashed him an annoyed look.

"He was sent after these kids ten years ago. The eldest one killed him."

Naruto's stomach dropped. Killed? The last vampire to try this had been actually, literally killed? When he'd called the mission life-threatening, he thought he was being at least somewhat hyperbolic, but he might be _killed_ by someone. He swallowed, his tongue suddenly very dry.

"Scared?" asked Sasuke.

"No."

"You don't have to tag along."

"Yes, he does," growled the Third. "He's not going along as your student, Sasuke, but as your partner. He's been recommended as ready for missions, and of special importance for this one. Gaara believes his unique abilities will give him a distinct advantage in getting the Hyuuga girl."

Although he was still not an expert on colour, Naruto was sure Sasuke's whole face went red.

"_Gaara _is the one giving the recommendation?"

That was news to Naruto as well. He wondered if he should feel proud – maybe Gaara did like him, underneath all the violence! – but then it was equally possible that this was Gaara's way of getting him hurt even more. Still, he'd double his offer of drinks next time he was down in the arena.

The Third nodded. "Get some sleep, both of you. If you're not well-rested when the time comes . . . " But it was clear that lying down for a nap was not on Sasuke's agenda: his flushed face was contorted with barely-masked anger, and he looked neither of the others in the eye, absorbed by whatever was going on in his own head. Naruto began to suspect he knew what Sasuke's problem was: this mission was a big deal, and he didn't want Naruto to steal his thunder.

Well, he'd just have to get over it.

"Yeah, Sasuke, come on! We've got a mission to prepare for! Let's regroup, make a plan, gather supplies and move out. What time should we leave, midnight? Sunset? Crack of dawn?"

Sasuke didn't even roll his eyes. Instead he turned his ugly gaze back on the Third and grumbled, "Let's not drag this out. I know all the other details."

"Be sure to heed them," warned the Third. He turned around and Sasuke began to leave, the briefing obviously over. Naruto could only blink at how quick it had been, how little information he'd garnered from it. He had hardly learned anything, even his victim's first name.

_Victim. _The word gave him a bit of a shudder. The only reason he was okay with this at all – apart from the tremendous excitement his body felt of its own accord at the very mention of hunting – was that he knew the victim wasn't _really _going to die, so he didn't have to feel too guilty.

He followed Sasuke back the way they came. He'd never seen the other this annoyed before, and all things considered, that was an achievement. "Hey, Sasuke? So what's our plan going to be, exactly?"

After a long while, Sasuke just said, "I've got one."

"Okay, that's cool and all, but I think I should know it as well."

"I can take care of it myself."

"Oh no, you're not getting rid of me that easily. I'm _definitely _going. I'd just like to make sure I'm coming back afterwards. I don't want to die – I mean, again, I guess. Do _you_ want me to die?"

"Of course not!" There was a distinct sharpness in Sasuke's voice, which he tried unsuccessfully to conceal. "It's that you – I – I don't believe you're experienced enough to do something like this. It's extremely dangerous and only the best should be involved."

Naruto was about to retort, "Well, Gaara thinks I'm the best for this extremely dangerous job!" but he stopped himself. It occurred to him that maybe Sasuke wasn't simply jealous about his acceptance on the mission; maybe all this anger was his way of showing concern. He was worried about Naruto's safety! Well, that was nicer than the alternative, anyway. Naruto hoped it was true.

Before they made it back to their sleeping quarters, Sasuke took an abrupt turn right into a passage Naruto had never really noticed before. There were still a lot like that, since his basic rule for directions was, 'go straight until you recognise something or land face-first in something'. This one thinned quickly, taking a downward dip and then narrowing at the sides until he had to suck in his stomach just to squeeze through at an angle. He must have walked like that for an least an hour before a T-junction gave him room to breathe, and perhaps unwisely, he used the opportunity to complain.

"You know, when he told us to sleep on it, I'm almost a hundred per cent sure he didn't mean for us to pass out from exhaustion. This is ridiculous, where the hell are we? Is this some secret way back to our place?"

"No," Sasuke said quietly. "We're not going to _sleep on it _at _our place_. This is the way out."

"Which you're not going through," a third voice said. Naruto jumped; his hearing was still the vampire sense over which he had the least control, either missing when someone was right behind him or accidentally eavesdropping on someone three tunnels away.

Sasuke, he noticed, hadn't been surprised at all. "It's official this time, Kankuro. I'm on a mission."

Kankuro Sabaku was standing ahead of them in the left passage of the T-junction, blocking their way as it remained single-file. His arms were folded over his chest, but casually, not in any attempt to look aggressive. Such a gesture wouldn't have intimidated, anyway, because Naruto (and presumably Sasuke) just wasn't scared of him, ever. Gaara scared everyone, Temari scared Naruto enough that he was glad she wasn't present, but Kankuro didn't faze him. Maybe because he was the only one in that crazy family who hadn't tried to crush his bones.

"I know, you're going for a Hyuuga. Serious stuff. If you die, can I have your book stash? I know you must have something dirty in there." Kankuro grinned. As far as Naruto knew, not many people were aware of Sasuke's reading collection, but like Temari, Kankuro controlled security. If it was his job to control who came in and out, it only figured that he would have seen Sasuke returning from wherever he went with a pile of books in his arms.

"If you know what I'm doing, why are you saying I can't go through?" Sasuke scowled.

Naruto couldn't help but notice that Sasuke was saying 'I' instead of 'we'_. _"Yeah, Kankuro," he added unnecessarily. "Why can't you let _us _go through?"

"The Third sent a message ahead," Kankuro replied. "You're getting an escort."

Sasuke stiffened. "Excuse me?"

"Thought you'd like that."

"Why the hell would I need someone to escort me?"

"How should I know? I don't question decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe it's because the Hyuugas are fucking hardasses and you'll need all the help you can get, lest you cark it, or maybe – just hazarding a guess here – it's because you've got a newbie with you and it's a rule that newbies need escorts. Not that you'd know anything about the rules."

As if it was the first time he'd noticed Naruto was there, Sasuke turned and shot him an indecipherable look. Whatever it was meant to say, it made him feel about two inches tall. Trying not to be cowed, he asked, "Who is it?"

"Shikamaru."

"Shikamaru?" Sasuke scoffed. "Don't be stupid. He doesn't do that kind of work."

"He does now, I guess. He _is _the only one who's been to the Hyuuga place and survived. Hell, it'll be good to get him out of here. I keep going to get Temari for her shifts and accidentally walking in on . . . " Kankuro shuddered. "Unspeakable things."

"Fine. Where is he, then? I'm not interested in waiting."

"It won't kill you to be patient. Have you slept?"

"I'm fine."

"Jesus, you really think you're invincible, don't you? Look, he might be on his way, or he might come tomorrow if he's stupid enough to believe you'd do what the Third says. But you're not getting out without him. Don't give me that glare. You haven't resorted to treason yet, and I know you won't start by killing me."

Luckily, they didn't need a lot of patience, as Shikamaru waltzed up to them not five minutes later. He didn't look like he'd exerted himself much to get here, nor did he look eager to go any further. Perhaps it was that he didn't want to face the apparent danger of the Hyuugas for a second time.

"Have fun up there in the big, wide world," Kankuro said, grinning as he now ushered them past. They edged around each other with difficulty. "Hope to see you again."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "With this loudmouth on the team, we'll be lucky not to get killed _before _getting there."

"Hey!" Naruto knew that was directed at him.

"Prove me wrong."

"Don't," Sasuke said warningly – but to which one of them, Naruto wasn't sure. He decided to believe it was to Shikamaru. It occurred to him that maybe all of Shikamaru's reluctance wasn't about the danger at all – maybe it was just that he didn't like Naruto all that much. That probably made just as much sense.

It wasn't that Naruto didn't like Shikamaru – he found there was always going to be something about a person that you liked and something you didn't – but he could definitely be driven mad by him. On the rare occasions Shikamaru was out socialising, he always seemed to be looking at Naruto with an expression that said, "I don't even know why I'm wasting my energy on someone like you." His eyes would be unfocused, his mind would wander; he just didn't have any enthusiasm or optimism, and after a while it made Naruto go crazy.

They walked together in terse silence up the broadening passage, _up _being the operative word, as there was steadily-increasing incline. It took a while to notice, but once he did, it was all Naruto could think about: after a while, each step sent an objectionable ache along his calf muscles, reminding him that he wasn't immune to pain, just a bit better at withstanding it. Still, they walked for a while – a human would have been reduced to a quivering pile of perspiration ages ago.

Steeper and steeper, higher and higher . . . they were practically climbing by now. Sasuke and Shikamaru didn't appear to be struggling, but they _must _have been. Naruto couldn't contain his huffs and his grunts, especially on account of his shoulder. He healed quickly, but not that quickly.

"This – is – ridiculous," he gasped, clambering to match the others' pace. "How are we – not there yet?"

Shikamaru replied boredly, "We live underground. To get above ground, we climb up."

"But it's so – so far!"

"This is nothing," said Sasuke, who was furthest in front. "The Hyuugas live miles away from the entrance. We'll need to find a train."

Naruto scrunched up his face in confusion. "Vampires have trains?"

"Idiot. Humans have trains, and we're going to use it for transport just like they do."

"A train will take hours. We should get on a plane," Shikamaru pointed out, but Sasuke looked resolute.

"No planes."

Too bamboozled to contribute, Naruto just kept grappling with the steep stone walls and pondered. Catching the train? Like normal, non-murderous people? He hadn't thought about how vampires would get around long distances; if pressed, he probably would have guessed they used some kind of magic, even though he hadn't actually seen anything yet that he'd consider magic. It all seemed like science he didn't understand.

But still . . . a train?

"Was Sasuke serious about that?" he muttered to Shikamaru when Sasuke had pushed even farther ahead of them.

"He isn't particularly well-known for his jokes. Though I wish he were – any train is going to take five times as long. Him and his stupid planes, honestly . . . "

A small grin slid onto Naruto's face. "Don't tell me the One is afraid of flying."

God, he hoped it was true. He'd never let Sasuke live it down. But sadly, Shikamaru shook his head. "It's not a fear thing. He just avoids any situation in which he has to completely trust someone else. He doesn't think any human is competent enough to be a pilot in charge of his life. As far as I know, he isn't actually afraid of anything."

"Oh." Naruto was a little bit disappointed. "Well, I guess it tallies with what I've already figured out about him. He really has trust issues."

"Hardly surprising, after what his brother did."

"Who? Oh, right, the mistake. What did he do?"

"I wasn't around then, but I've been told – "

Suddenly Sasuke was turning around, glaring at them, and Shikamaru frowned and stopped talking, much to Naruto's dismay. He hated knowing there was a story and only getting half of it! Sasuke's brother . . . no, he knew nothing about the guy. Any mention of family made Sasuke clam up and Naruto hadn't figured out a way around it.

Nobody spoke again while they were still underground. It felt like hours, and it probably was, but at long last Naruto caught a glimpse of light – just a speck, but it was all the motivation he needed. He sped up despite his burning muscles and felt the ground level out. As the light grew bigger, he got excited. He had been living underground for two years and this felt like a homecoming. What year was it now, 2013? He couldn't wait to see how things had changed.

"Slow down, idiot," called Shikamaru irritably, but Naruto paid no attention. He was sprinting now.

And then … he saw nothing.

He felt pain. Burning pain, right in his eyes. All he could see was blinding white, and he couldn't tell if it was the light itself or the inside of his eyelids. Were his eyes open or closed? It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_, and he couldn't make it stop!

"And this is why you don't run full-speed into the sun for the first time in years." Shikamaru's critical voice was somewhere above him; Naruto must have collapsed.

"You could have warned him, _escort_," said Sasuke. Naruto could almost hear his frown.

"I did. I told him to slow down."

"You knew he wouldn't listen to that."

"What should I have done, tackled him? I'm not going to that much effort just to save him a bit of pain. At least this way he'll learn to listen."

Two pairs of hands roughly seized Naruto's shoulders and hauled him to his feet, even though he still couldn't see anything but a stark, white cloud. Blinking a few times (or trying to blink, at least), he fumbled around to grab onto something.

"Hands off," Sasuke said shortly. So Sasuke was on the left. Okay.

Naruto allowed himself to be led out into the world blindly, although this wasn't exactly how he pictured this mission happening. He'd hoped to burst out from the black tunnels with a cheer and face all his memories, his friends, his home . . . yes, he knew that was against the rules, but he could dream, couldn't he? It was still eating away at him that he couldn't see Sakura.

After a while, he began to hear voices. As his eyes were impaired, his ears must have been picking up the slack: he found himself identifying things he'd never really noticed before in his life. _Water running through the gutters. It's rained recently, only about a day ago. Probably had strong wind, too, judging by all those leaves on the ground._

They had reached civilisation. There were people talking, groaning, gasping; there were cars that gave off a foul sound and even fouler stench; there were phones ringing, papers rustling, electronics humming. It was a big sensory overload.

"Wait," Naruto said, catching a particular melody on the wind. "I know where we are!"

That pharmacy on the corner by his work, the one that played the same stupid elevator music every day – right now, he could have listened to it forever as he recognised it, recognised where he must have been. He pulled towards the tune, but Sasuke and Shikamaru held him firmly.

"You can't just run off on a whim," Sasuke said sharply.

"You'll get us all noticed," agreed Shikamaru.

"Hey, I'm home! Can't you just let me enjoy it for a minute? You really are soulless bastards!"

Admittedly, Naruto said the word 'bastards' a bit too loudly. But of all things, he didn't expect what he heard next: a strange interaction between two children, who sounded quite close.

"You used the b-word! You used the b-word!"

"I did not! That wasn't me!"

"Then who was it?"

"It didn't even sound like me! It was a grown-up!"

"I'm _so _telling Dad."

"It wasn't me!"

Naruto wasn't pulling anymore. The others had their fingers locked on his arms, but he was already frozen. He wasn't scared, just shocked. He didn't expect humans to be able to hear him.

"And if you walk into them, they'll feel it, too," said Sasuke, and for the first time Naruto noticed how much he was keeping his voice down. "You're not a ghost, Naruto. One or two small mistakes could ruin everything. What if, instead of children, it had been journalists? Would you cross your fingers and hope they didn't notice?"

"Okay, okay," Naruto mumbled, abashed. "I get it."

"Do you, though? Do you realise that the most secure thing we could do is kill them now?"

"_Kill _– "

"Shut up, moron!" Shikamaru interrupted, jabbing Naruto in the side. "And Sasuke, you too. Jesus, if you're so ready to kill a couple of stupid kids who don't even believe each other, I'm never hunting with you again. Why would you bother going to the effort of adding to the number of bodies we have to carry?"

Naruto gritted his teeth, suddenly angry. "That's the part that bothers you, Shikamaru? How heavy they'd be? I swear . . . "

Slowly, they kept moving, only now Naruto wasn't interested in the surroundings. Even when his eyesight gradually returned, he just felt bitter about everything being in black and white. The worst was when they passed a billboard for the university he'd hoped to be attending by now; its emblem, a golden eagle spreading its wings, was embittering in its shade of pale grey. It used to inspire him. What good was it now?

As promised, they made their way to a train station. It was mercifully uncrowded, so they slipped past the ticket barriers without issue. While waiting on the outdoor platform, Shikamaru wandered away, towards a group of businessmen smoking thick cigars. The smell repulsed Naruto, but he'd heard from Ino that Shikamaru secretly loved it. So it was just Sasuke and he, Naruto, who sat on the ground at the platform's far end, away from the real passengers.

Sasuke kept shooting him glances, but never speaking. Like everything else now, this annoyed Naruto. "If you've got something to say . . . " he began heatedly.

"I don't. You, on the other hand, seem to have plenty."

Naruto shook his head, frowning. "Nope. Nothing. Not even going to mention again how evil you all are. They were little kids! How old are these Hyuugas we're going after, twelve?"

"Older than you now, actually. You seemed excited enough to come on the mission."

"Yeah, because I haven't been home in two years! But this . . . isn't what I wanted. It's not the same for some reason."

A crease also appeared on Sasuke's brow, and he murmured, "It makes no sense."

"What?"

He shook his head.

"Tell me!"

"Fine." His tone wasn't eager, and it fact it was hesitant enough to suggest that, for maybe the first time ever, he wasn't sure about something. "You. You don't make much sense. You're angry about missing your life, not being allowed to go and rekindle your memories, visit your old friends. You're disappointed that things have changed, or that you've changed, or both. But when I killed you – "

"Thanks."

"When I killed you, none of that worried you in the slightest. You seemed glad to be rid of it."

"Glad to – " Naruto wanted to be outraged. He was offended by the suggestion that he had been anything less than happy with his life. He'd had a job, an apartment, friends – one friend, anyway – so there was nothing to complain about! But after the initial shock, he realised that it was, however, hard to remember exactly what frame of mind he'd been in the night he was turned into a vampire. Maybe something had happened to make him unhappy?

He strained to remember. _I was coming home from work . . ._

No, work had been normal. Gruelling, but normal. The long shifts going far into the night kept his finances in check, meagre though they were. His old boss, an entrepreneur, business mogul and author, had been only as stern with him as he was any other day. Yet for some reason, the memory made a knot form in the pit of Naruto's stomach, like there _was_ something unpleasant that had transpired that day that he was forgetting.

"Maybe," he said uncertainly to Sasuke, though he couldn't for the life of him remember. "But I still had lots of good stuff going for me as well! I was probably just having a bad day. It wasn't like I was asking to die! Even if I wasn't, y'know, entirely happy all the time, there's no way I would've put Sakura through that."

He distinctly heard Sasuke growl under his breath, "Of course, Sakura." He heated up again.

"What, you've got a problem with Sakura now?"

"She seems to be the core reason for everything you do. It's getting repetitive."

"You don't even know her!"

"How could I?"

"Then where the _fuck _do you get – "

Suddenly, Sasuke wasn't looking at Naruto anymore, but behind him. In his rage, Naruto didn't really notice, but when he raised his voice to almost shouting, he did see Sasuke's body tense up like he was about to spring at something. Before he could react, Sasuke grabbed him and, with lightning speed, pulled him to his feet.

"What the – "

Sasuke slammed Naruto against the railing that blocked off the end of the train platform, forcefully stopping his complaints. For a second Naruto thought he was going to punch him. Instead, Sasuke took him completely by surprise by throwing a hand over his mouth and pressing their bodies together.

_What the hell, _Naruto had been trying to yell, and he still wanted to. Why was Sasuke dragging him around, deliberately hurting him, not even trying to treat him as an equal? And why were they standing flat against each other, him with his mouth covered? Was this the weirdest rape attempt ever?

Then he saw. The platform's other end was now quite full, and travellers had begun spilling over to where the two of them were. Not only that, but several of the people were peering with bewildered expressions right where Naruto had been sitting seconds ago. Fuck. They must have heard him. He'd screwed up again, twice before the mission had really started!

A young woman was the first to reach the spot, walking over it, looking around in all directions. She came within a foot of where Naruto and Sasuke were now. After a minute, she turned to her female companion and shrugged. "Must have been a weird echo."

Naruto didn't move a muscle until she was far away. Not that Sasuke was letting him, of course. That hand plastered over his mouth stayed firmly there, until he was fighting the instinctive urge to lick it. They stayed frozen in that position for so long that it actually became boring, and after that, uncomfortable. Sure, when Naruto was _alive_, he might have killed for a chance to be pressed up against a tough, handsome guy, but as it was . . .

He pushed that thought out of his head, a little embarrassed. Luckily he got no indication that Sasuke could read his mind.

Finally, finally Sasuke relaxed and let him go. Naruto coughed very quietly and acted as if nothing had happened, possibly overcompensating for his awkward thought, then he acted overly interested when the train rumbled into the station. As Shikamaru caught up with them and they dodged and weaved around passengers, Sasuke said to Naruto out of the corner of his mouth, "You could be a little more grateful."

"Huh?" Naruto said dumbly. Because of where his mind was, all he could think was that Sasuke was trying to hint something suggestive at him, even though that was spectacularly unlikely.

"Be a bit more appreciative and stop acting like I've ruined your existence. You may not have asked for this, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse."

Naruto frowned. "I know."

"Do you?" asked Shikamaru, who had obviously been listening. "Because I haven't spent much time around you, but in the time that I have, all you've done is complain. And call me evil and soulless, of course. You're definitely not grateful."

This was the last thing Naruto had expected. Him, ungrateful for being a vampire? So he missed a few things about his human life and wished he'd gotten to give a proper goodbye; that didn't mean he would give up what he had now. He loved how his body felt – light, lean and powerful, with more muscle than he'd ever been able to attain at the gym – and he wasn't shy about expressing his delight whenever he found himself with some new skill. Who was Sasuke to tell him he wasn't thankful for it? In fact, it was only hours ago, at training with Gaara, that he'd whooped and exclaimed, "Man, I can _jump_ now! I love this!" Sasuke certainly cherry-picked his way around that one . . .

Though, Naruto supposed Sasuke could have missed it when he said that. After all, the only response he got was from Gaara, saying, "Use it." While Sasuke had definitely been around somewhere, it was possible that he didn't hear everything that was said. Maybe he just watched and didn't listen.

In fact, now that Naruto thought about it, most of the verbal appreciation he gave was during those training sessions. Gaara was always the one showing him all the cool stuff, and Sasuke was stuck teaching him the rules and describing all the murder that would happen.

Was Gaara the only one who got to see him be enthusiastic? It was possible. Naruto wouldn't have thought it likely, but definitely possible. Maybe that was why it appeared that Gaara secretly liked him, or thought he was good enough to go on missions, at least.

Amidst his outrage and incredulity, there came a twinge of guilt. Maybe he'd been dumping all over Sasuke without realising it.

Damn. He didn't have to apologise, did he? He hated being wrong. But the crowd had forced Sasuke way down the other end of the train carriage, pushed right up against a wall, so they couldn't talk even if Naruto wanted to. Shikamaru, too, had moved, and was now unfortunately in the process of cramming himself underneath the seats to avoid people's feet. Well, that was a dampener on Naruto's already-down spirits; all the strength in the world, and they had to be reduced to squirming on a dirty train floor.

So much for being grateful! He was going to hold off on the apologies.

* * *

**A/N: **So, I swear, the next chapter basically starts with, "They got there at last and THERE'S NEJI!" He'll be right there. I hope this didn't feel too filler-y, because god knows, the Naruto fandom has had to deal with enough filler to last a lifetime already.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note: **It's exam time again, which means chapters for all! Kind of long but not too long ones!

Enjoy. And thank you, reviewers, for your words of support! They're always extremely appreciated, and if you have questions, I will happily do my best to answer them.

* * *

**Lockdown**

They finally arrived at their destination, after not one, but four train trips. The first two were merciless, absolutely packed with passengers who barely gave each other an inch of personal space, but the latter trains were inter-city, so they were naturally emptier. Naruto was in more pain than either Sasuke or Shikamaru: instead of ducking under seats to avoid people, he had chosen to climb up one of the hand-rails that stretched up to the ceiling, where he held on for dear life above the humans' heads. If he'd fallen, it would have been beyond disastrous. That was why he spent the whole time avoiding Sasuke's gaze, because it would definitely have been furious.

But they made it, without incident, to the nearly-vacant plot of land that held the Hyuuga compound. The area was mostly farmland with an occasional factory slotted in between barns, but a road running up a crescent – actually called Hyuuga Road – led the way to wrought-iron gates like those at the main entrance of a prison. The property itself was set way back, far from easy view of casual passers-by. It consisted of two buildings, both much larger than any mere farmhouse, and Naruto wondered if one of them was the house and the other the business.

"It's like they took a Beverly Hills mansion and just picked it up with helicopters and dropped it in the country," he commented. "Don't businessmen usually live in big cities? Rural areas hardly even have Internet!"

"The Hyuugas have always lived out here," said Shikamaru. "As long as I've been around, anyway. It must be an old family tradition to keep out of urban areas. Not a bad idea, I suppose, if someone tries to abduct you every so often."

"And neither of you is going to ask me what the Internet is?" Naruto asked cheekily.

Sasuke snorted. "We're going after the owners of the biggest surveillance technology company in the world, whom we went after ten years ago, and whom we've been carefully following for longer than any human has been alive. And you know perfectly well that we – I, in particular – keep up-to-date on everything. Do you really think we'd miss something like that?"

"I was more talking to Shikamaru," Naruto grumbled.

They wandered around the outside of the property, not yet venturing past the gates. It was just after dusk, which Shikamaru had explained was not ideal because they had no idea if people were home or not. If it were midday, most likely all the Hyuugas would be working; if it were midnight, they would obviously be asleep at home. As it was, they needed to wait and try to spot someone, because apparently if one of them was home, they probably all were.

Naruto, not keen on the idea of grabbing a girl in her bed, asked if it wouldn't be easier if they waited for her to take an evening stroll.

Sasuke replied that attempted kidnapping victims don't usually go out for evening strolls.

Boredom soon overcame Naruto as they continued to do nothing. He knew he should have been listening as Shikamaru droned on about the house's floor plan, and he heard enough to learn that both buildings were in fact the homes of different family members, but after that he found he couldn't remember any details at all. Not that Shikamaru seemed to care – while he spoke he was lying on the grass at the side of the road, eyes half-open and bored. It was only Sasuke who remained alert.

Nodding, pretending he knew exactly what Shikamaru was talking about, Naruto ambled right up to the gates to get a good look. His vampire eyes could see every garden sculpture ostentatiously placed around the grounds, all the tire marks on the gravel that clearly belonged to at least three different cars, and a few details that were ridiculous even by rich people standards. He could see stained glass windows at the top, for God's sake.

So intent on spotting the little things, he almost missed it when the front door of the closer house swung open and a person came out.

When he noticed, Naruto flicked his head over to Sasuke, who was at the other end of the road with Shikamaru, and beckoned for him to get over here. Then he stood still and watched the Hyuuga, studying her, trying to figure out what was so scary about this family.

He almost jumped out of his skin when her eyes went straight to his face.

Instinctively, he ducked, even though that didn't conceal him in the slightest. All it did was make Sasuke throw him a very odd look. "What's the matter with you?"

"She – she saw me!" Naruto pointed wildly. "Right there, at the door, she looked right at me!"

Sasuke saw the Hyuuga and chuckled slightly.

"Don't laugh, Sasuke, it's true! But while she's here, shouldn't we . . . you know . . . get her?"

"First of all," said Sasuke, "they _can't_ see you. Human eyes just aren't good enough. Even having a camera doesn't help them. And second of all, your 'she' is a 'he'. That's the eldest one."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "That's a guy?" He'd never seen hair like that on a male before, so long and flowing and, well, _long. _He tried to get another look, but the Hyuuga had disappeared around the side of the house. "Okay, but he definitely saw me. I'm not making this up!"

"Maybe he heard you," said Shikamaru, who was approaching to see what the fuss was about. "You're awfully loud. And it's Neji. That's his name. He's Hinata's cousin – that's the girl we're after."

"Their names don't matter," muttered Sasuke.

Hot in the face, Naruto stopped insisting since it was obvious his companions didn't believe him, nor care about his worry. _They _wouldn't know, they didn't see the piercing stare directed at him! That wasn't random scanning the surroundings; that was pinpointing someone. That was the look you gave when you saw something so drastically out of place you couldn't help but give it your full attention.

Of course, as the seconds trickled by, he became less and less sure of himself, wondering if it really was that definite. After two minutes, he was pretty certain he was right, maybe ninety-five per cent. Or maybe only ninety. Eighty-nine.

Maybe only fifty.

Either way, he was a bit alarmed, and that emotion increased tenfold when Neji Hyuuga returned to the front of the house, holding a weapon-looking device that he, Naruto, had never seen before. It had a tough, metallic surface and thick strings built inside like a powerful elastic mechanism. He had no idea what it was, until he noticed a quiver of six arrows slung across Neji's hip. Then it kind of reminded him of a crossbow, and again he felt the urge to duck away.

Sasuke didn't look too happy, either. "That's inconvenient."

"What _is _it?"

"A compound bow. More forceful and accurate than the normal kind."

So Naruto hadn't been wrong to think of crossbows. "But that doesn't affect us, does – does it? I mean, even if he shot us, we'd just heal, right?"

"We're not invincible. If he's good enough to get you in the skull, you'll be dead. That could be how he got Kidomaru."

"No," Shikamaru rebuked. "Stabbed through the ribs with a knife, was the report I heard when Temari retrieved the body. Right in the heart, still invisible, and the boy's fingerprints all over it. Pretty scary for a fifteen-year-old. I don't suppose he'll be any weaker, being twenty-five now."

Brilliant. Just brilliant. How the hell was Naruto supposed to feel confident about getting around a guy who stabbed with knives, shot with a bow and probably had a whole arsenal of weapons sitting in his bedroom? And what if the girl that they were after was worse, if that was possible? Suddenly he didn't feel the lean strength of his body anymore. He felt weak.

His expression must have revealed his dread, because Sasuke grabbed his arm and said sharply, "Stop it. If you're afraid, you don't go. I can handle it. If you have fear, you make mistakes, and we can't afford mistakes."

Coming from Sasuke, that was almost nice. It even made Naruto calm down a bit.

Shikamaru, meanwhile, was still watching Neji and his compound bow. "It looks like he's going off to train with it. He probably has a target set up somewhere around the back. If you're looking to avoid him, this might be your chance."

"N-now?" Naruto gulped.

"Having him outside the house can only be good news. No doubt the place's lockdown features are even better by now, so the odds are slim that you'd be forced to confront him if you're exposed."

"Okay. O-okay."

"Damn it, Naruto," Sasuke snapped, sounding frustrated. "Don't bother. You're too nervous. I'm going in alone."

"No!"

"No," said Shikamaru as well. "I'm overseeing this mission and the order was that you both go in. we've seen time and time again that just one doesn't work, and Sasuke, even though it's bothersome, you are important. No one wants you dead just because you thought you were braver."

Now that he was confronted with it, the prospect of death was really impacting Naruto, but he wasn't going to take it lying down. "I'm fine. Just tell me the plan."

"I'll go in and look around the outside of both houses to see if they have any security that I can shut down, or at least get a good look at. With any luck I'll be able to hear the girl and judge the best way in. Then, if you insist, I'll get you and we'll go inside and separate her from the rest of the family."

"Wouldn't the best way in just be to climb up and go through one of those high windows?"

"On the off-chance that they're neither locked nor alarmed," Shikamaru said, rolling his eyes. Sasuke kept going.

"Getting in isn't the hard part. When we leave we'll be carrying a body, and whoever kills her will be visible. If necessary, whichever one of us isn't will have to provide a distraction so the other can get away."

Naruto hadn't even thought about that part. This whole mission was sounding more and more suicidal by the second, and he wished he'd listened harder to Shikamaru's floor plan earlier. In addition, his mind kept wandering back to the Elders' cave, that briefing with the Third, and how apparently Gaara thought he had unique abilities that would come in useful here. He didn't have even the faintest idea what those abilities could be, but he sure hoped they would show themselves early.

He ran a hand through his hair nervously. "And what's Shikamaru doing?"

"Me?" Shikamaru raised his hands as if surrendering. "I'll be waiting right here for you to hopefully make it out alive. I'm just the escort."

"You're not even _helping?_"

"I might help carry the body so we can escape faster."

"Oh, good. Thanks for making such a huge effort."

"You two are welcome to stand here arguing," interjected Sasuke. "But I have a mission to do. Naruto, if you chicken out, you don't need to follow me."

Without giving Naruto time to react to the jibe, Sasuke grabbed onto the gate and began scaling it. It was impressive to watch, as the iron gates were about twelve feet tall and made entirely of vertical pales, with absolutely no footholds. The muscles of his arms were clearly visible as they kept tensely gripped in place and then pulled him up effortlessly, bit by bit, until he reached the top and vaulted over. He landed seamlessly, barely displacing any dust. Naruto, who hadn't seen him do anything physical in a long time, was a little awed.

When Sasuke was out of view, Shikamaru murmured, "You must be either very tolerant or very stupid to deal with him every day."

Naruto frowned. "Why's that?"

"He doesn't make it a secret that he prefers to do things alone. Haven't you noticed how many times he's tried to dissuade you from taking this mission?"

"Oh, that? He's just, y'know, trying to protect his best student, that's all."

"If you say so. Looks to me like he's trying to protect his reputation, not letting you take any of his glory."

"What, he thinks I'm going to steal his position as head vampire?" Naruto couldn't help but grin. "Sorry, no sale. I don't want it, not even a little bit. If a war happens, I'm going to be on the back line, talking everyone out of fighting each other."

"If it's not a share in his position, then what _are _you trying to get?"

"Nothing!"

"Come on."

"Why do you assume I'm after something?"

"You've been a vampire for two years. By now, no matter how slow you might be, you've definitely learned all the basics. Why are you still attached at the hip to your mentor, if not to get something you couldn't get on your own?"

Shikamaru seemed genuinely curious about this, but Naruto didn't have a clue how to answer. Of course he didn't have any crazy ulterior motive. After being automatically paired up with Sasuke on day one, it hadn't occurred to him to make a big, conscious decision to branch away on his own. It did seem to be what most of the other vampires did, but he couldn't think of anything more boring and lonely than spending almost every day alone, only seeing other people maybe once a week, tops. There was little enough to do underground, but the good part about being with Sasuke all the time was that he kept busy, which basically forced Naruto to do the same. That, and just having someone to talk to whenever he wanted was a lifesaver. It was like having an introverted roommate in university – or maybe more like having a sane cellmate in prison. Yeah, that was a better comparison.

"I dunno." Naruto shrugged.

"You live with him, don't you?" asked Shikamaru.

"We share our little house-y area, yeah."

"So do Temari and I."

"Oh yeah? Good for you."

"It's a hassle. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Are you like me and Temari?"

It took only a second for Naruto to understand what Shikamaru meant, but before he got the chance to say anything in response, Sasuke appeared again. He was by the door from which Neji had emerged, shooting Naruto a pointed, impatient look, which Naruto interpreted as an invitation to come in.

_Here goes nothing. _He concentrated on the gate looming over his head. This was the first step, the easiest one, but even it made him nervous. He didn't know how they were meant to climb back over it while carrying an unconscious girl. Doing his best to drive the worry from his mind, he slowly rappelled his way up the bars. He wasn't nearly as smooth as Sasuke had been, but he made it all the same. He tiptoed to the door.

"They have alarms on all the doors that I saw," Sasuke said quietly. "All the large windows, too. Everything upstairs has block-out shades and I didn't see any central system for shutting things down. Presumably it's somewhere like the eldest family member's bedroom. The only windows that are open are the ones leading into bathrooms, and they're all barred. There's one on the ground floor here, around the back, which could be a useful exit if things go wrong, but not much of an entry point. The girl is definitely in this house, with at least one other adult."

Naruto had a sinking feeling. "So what do we do?"

"We wait until that other one is done with his archery, and we follow him back inside."

"Are you . . . are you kidding?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"No." Naruto had never shaken his head so vigorously in his life. "You don't, and I'm saying no way. I'm not sneaking around that guy. He totally saw me before, and he's armed! You can't seriously believe that's the safest way to do this."

Sasuke didn't look like he cared. He certainly hadn't given any indication that he was scared of Neji Hyuuga. Yet Naruto didn't think he himself was overreacting to the danger, so this plan seemed nothing short of insane.

"I mean," he continued hurriedly, "are you sure about that bathroom window? Why can't we break the bars?"

"Because bar-breaking is the opposite of stealth," Sasuke snapped. He quickly glanced over both shoulders, at what, Naruto couldn't see. He lowered his voice even further. "Look, you can go try that way if you want. But when it fails, don't expect me to be there to bail you out. You being here on your own would be far worse than standing behind some human for a few seconds while he opens a door. So if you're going to be here doing this, you're going to do it my way."

Naruto still wasn't convinced. "If he's just 'some human', why aren't we allowed to go after him? He's alone and outside, it should be nothing."

Sasuke didn't respond.

Well, that was a victory, of sorts. With a shrug more casual than he felt, Naruto walked off down the side of the house to find the window. As promised, Sasuke didn't follow him.

He hoped he wasn't making a really huge mistake by trying to do this single-handedly. Dying really wasn't a priority of his today, and in fact, since he'd found out about becoming a vampire he'd been growing quite comfortable with the prospect of living practically forever. But he especially didn't want to die right now because he wanted to get back to his conversation with Shikamaru: the one that had abruptly ended right after Shikamaru insinuated that Naruto stayed with Sasuke because they were a couple.

Obviously it wasn't true. Smart as he was, Shikamaru _must _have known that, but Naruto needed to make sure, as soon as this mission was done. No dying allowed.

He spotted the target window, higher up than he expected, so he had to do a little run-up to reach it. The bars on it looked like legitimate prison bars, just as tough as those of the front gate. He gave one of them an experimental tug. It didn't budge.

No way could Shikamaru have legitimately thought Naruto and Sasuke were a couple. That just didn't make sense. Yeah, so Naruto was gay and Sasuke happened to be attractive. _That doesn't make Shikamaru any more right_, Naruto thought irritably. For one thing, Sasuke was three hundred years old! Granted, it was sometimes easy to forget, but it was still true. Yeah, so Naruto spent every day with Sasuke and convinced him to let them live together by digging out a whole extra cave for him to sleep in. So he enjoyed Sasuke's company even though the other was so closed-off that he didn't talk about his family or even know his own sexuality. What a messed up childhood _that _must have been.

Naruto tugged at the bar with a bit more force, and it strained under his fingers. God, he loved being strong. Using his other arm to keep himself balanced on the tiny window sill, he pulled hard, and the bar came free with a loud _thunk. _Not having anywhere else to put it, he let it drop to the ground.

It wasn't like he hadn't taken the time to think about whether he had any less-than-platonic feelings towards Sasuke – after two years, the thought was bound to spring up at some point – but he didn't. Sasuke was more like his brother.

He pulled another bar free from the window.

Well, okay, not like his brother. That was a bit too weird. He'd never had any siblings, but he was positive that the experience of brothers and the experience of Sasuke were completely different.

One more bar came down. If he tried really hard, he could squeeze through that gap now. His supporting arm was starting to hurt – hardly surprising, since it was the one with the dislocated shoulder – so he hastily dragged himself up and struggled through. He now had a good view of the bathroom floor, but there was no way to manoeuvre himself so that he could land comfortably. In fact, it looked like he wasn't going to be able to avoid crashing face-first onto the toilet.

With a final, resolute thought of how wrong Shikamaru was, Naruto took the plunge and leaned forward to fall.

To his surprise, he didn't fall forward as he expected, but backward. A sudden weight was around his hips, he was sliding back out the window, his stomach got that rushing sensation like dropping on a rollercoaster, and he landed on someone.

His first terrified thought was that it was Neji Hyuuga, so in a panic he tried to scramble off, but the person held him tight. Thankfully, he was wrong.

"Sasuke!" he exclaimed furiously. "You scared the shit out of me! I thought you were leaving me on my own."

Sasuke's arms were clamped around him; it was like getting an uncomfortable, disapproving hug. "I was, until you started making enough noise to wake up the whole country. What were you thinking, just pulling the bars out and throwing them around like that? You might as well have brought a drum kit!"

"No one in there noticed me! I got myself a way in, didn't I?"

"Did you also get yourself a way past the floor sensors?"

"Floor – floor sensors?"

"You might have considered that people like these would have good security," Sasuke snapped. "I would have warned you, but it seemed irrelevant since I didn't think you would try diving in head-first!"

"Well, thanks. I don't know why I didn't expect _floor sensors. _Maybe because I didn't realise my life had turned into Mission: Impossible!" Naruto growled. He was still lying on top of Sasuke, trying to shove the conversation with Shikamaru out of his head. If he were attracted to Sasuke, surely this position would be a dream come true, but clearly it wasn't. It was uncomfortable for both of them, Sasuke's hip jutting into Naruto and Naruto's elbow into Sasuke. Still, he was only human (well, metaphorically speaking), and he couldn't keep the thoughts from rolling in.

What was the matter with him? This had never happened to him before, never, that he got so fixated on an idea that he didn't even want!

When they did make their way off the ground at last, Sasuke said, "Well, nobody has come running yet. Perhaps you were incredibly lucky. We might as well use the entrance while we have it."

"And _you _have no problem with floor sensors," Naruto said sceptically.

"This isn't my first day."

As Sasuke approached the now-open window, he actually threw Naruto an uncharacteristic smile that made Naruto's breath catch in his throat. He immediately felt furious with himself. This was serious, this wasn't the time for frivolity. He should have been thinking about what the smile represented: Sasuke's confidence, his absolute certainty that he could perform any task, and the fact that he loved that about himself. He was so goddamned fearless it hurt.

Sasuke slid easily through the window and Naruto jumped back up to watch his next move. With the grace of a spider, the dark-haired vampire stretched out his arms, fingers splayed towards the ceiling, like he was floating in the air. That was only for a split second, though, as he grabbed at a single spot on the roof – Naruto realised there was a grate, concealing a ceiling fan there. Then Sasuke's feet, which up until now had been balancing on the sill, were let free, and he swung on the spot. He swayed himself backwards and forwards, gaining momentum, until he had enough to release the grate and fly right towards his next apparatus: a towel rack, right next to the door. Perching on it – again, like a spider – he reached out and twisted the doorknob. The door soundlessly opened a fraction.

Meanwhile, Naruto watched, open-mouthed. "How the hell did you know that would work?"

Sasuke looked very smug indeed. "If you mean the door, I assumed that since this is a bathroom, any security devices would be quick and local to deactivate, since not many people like to wait to go inside one. That ruled out most kinds of locks, and led me to believe the floor sensors wouldn't be connected to the door itself. Sensors are more easily deactivated by something like a simple key code. And – yes, there is a key pad just outside this door."

Naruto was speechless.

"Of course, if you were talking about my traversing the room, I'm just very good at that."

One more smile, and Sasuke jumped out the bathroom door into whatever hallway lay beyond. Naruto just hung from the window for a minute, wondering what was going to happen next.

_He's probably trying to figure out how to turn off the sensors so I can get in, too. There's no way he thinks I can flip around the ceiling the way he did. Jesus, was he an acrobat in his old life or something?_

Another minute passed.

_Come on, Sasuke, I thought you were insanely smart. How long can it take to decode a password? If it's like an ATM number, that's only, like, twenty possible combinations to try, right?_

One more minute, this time involving Naruto frowning over his abysmal counting skills, and he was beginning to suspect something. Surely Sasuke hadn't just walked off and abandoned him here. He couldn't have. Granted, he did want to do the mission alone and it wouldn't be the first time he'd left Naruto behind somewhere, but it couldn't be. No matter how in-character it would be, Sasuke had _not _gone.

Naruto's ears picked up a quiet, cheery melody of beeps from nearby. It sounded just like a key pad responding to a correct code. The sound relieved him greatly, and he was about to berate Sasuke for taking so long. He wriggled in the window, only a little bit stuck, ready to jump down to the bathroom floor.

But he stopped as the door was pushed open by someone who was definitely not Sasuke.

It was a girl. Or rather, a very young woman, but she still looked like a girl. Her hair was the same dark shade as Neji's, but actually a little shorter. She wore loose, warm clothes that covered her body almost completely, although her forearms were just visible enough for it to be obvious she didn't have her cousin's strength for weapons. Her eyes, however, were strikingly similar to Neji's . . . as Naruto could tell they were looking straight at him.

Naruto was no genius, but he knew everything was going to start going very wrong in about five seconds.

The girl's pale eyes widened fearfully and she gasped, although she did not scream for help, which Naruto expected. He was a little disappointed: certainly, his presence at the moment wasn't exactly scream-inspiring (stuck hanging from a bathroom window, after all), but it would have been reassuring to know he still looked at least a little bit intimidating. At least she didn't pull out a gun or anything. What she _did _pull out was far less scary, but with more promise of things going from bad to worse: from around her neck she produced a whistle.

Naruto's stomach dropped, and with it, the rest of his body as he fell from the window to the bathroom tiles, narrowly missing the toilet's cistern. The girl drew her whistle to her lips but didn't yet blow; it wasn't clear whether she was half-paralysed with shock or just watching Naruto's clumsiness. He had landed painfully. His face hurt like he'd pushed his jaw out of place.

How was she able to see him right now?

Did this mean Sasuke was somewhere in the house, completely visible to the other members of the Hyuuga family as well?

Shit, if he was . . .

Naruto attempted to clamber to his feet as unthreateningly as possible, praying the girl wouldn't blow her whistle. Images of sharp crossbow bolts hurtling at him flashed through his mind. Jaw aching, he ventured, "Hinata, right?"

The girl shrank away from him as if stung. Barely moving her mouth, she whispered, "Are – are you here to take me?"

"Well . . . yeah." Naruto felt at this point that she'd see through any heavy-handed lie he told. "But listen – "

Abruptly, he was interrupted by a savage scream from elsewhere in the house. His heart leapt into his throat as he just knew it was the sound of Sasuke being discovered. A man's voice bellowed, "Hinata! Hanabi! Neji! _Out!"_

Hinata threw Naruto one last terrified glance before she fled, as she was told. The man must have been her father, or maybe Neji's, and he did not sound like someone to take on in a fight. If anything, he sounded like the sort of person who would carry an AK-47 and wear bulletproof armour under his clothes.

Not knowing what to do now that things were turning truly catstrophic, Naruto agonised over whether to follow Hinata or dive back out the window to relative safety – though, if the Hyuugas were ordered to get outside, maybe inside was the best place for him. With a second's worry for Shikamaru's fate, he took a tentative step towards the hallway. On the way, he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror.

He made a choking sound. Was that really him?

There was still a definite resemblance between his human appearance and the face that gawked back at him now, but only as far as nose shape, chin pointiness and distinctive scars went; everything else was unrecognisable. His cheeks were gaunt, sharp, bones very defined under his eyes; eyes which had not grown larger as a whole, but the irises and pupils were at least twice as wide as he remembered. Sasuke didn't have eyes like that, nor did Shikamaru or Gaara or Kiba. Naruto's hair was longer, wilder than he remembered, too – which made perfect sense, and he _had _felt it swishing about as he ran lately – and of course, he couldn't see its colour.

But most shocking was how the time underground had impacted on his skin. He didn't need colour to know how insanely pale he was, corpse-like compared to the tan he used to have. It was ghostly, and seemed to extend even to his clothing. Paleness somehow suited all the other vampires, giving the impression that they'd been pale all their lives, but on him it looked wrong. He wondered if others thought so, too.

The sound of an alarm broke his stunned reverie, and he tore his eyes off his reflection just in time to see a thick shutter slam down on the window, blocking his exit. Shit. The Hyuugas must have activated the lockdown.

There was no time for hesitation now. Hinata would have told everyone he was in the bathroom. Naruto sprinted out, urgently seeking a hiding place, mission forgotten. Footsteps nearby prompted him to leap up a set of stairs four at a time, stopping at the second floor. Where Sasuke was, he had no idea. He prayed desperately that they'd both make it out of the house alive.

He'd never felt this imperiled, even back when he actually died. This was real, raw danger and nobody was going to help him out of it. His mind flashed from Sasuke to Sakura and back again, accompanied by a strange rush of emotion.

"This is _so _not the time to be thinking about that," he mumbled as he ran.

He darted into a bedroom as he heard someone coming up the stairs behind him. Thankfully the room was empty, though the single large window was covered by a lockdown shutter like the one downstairs. Trying not to be too loud, Naruto moved to the window and tried to prise the shutter off. Surely it couldn't be tougher than metal bars. However, whether it was or not, he couldn't find out, because its edged were slotted into grooves on the window so firmly that he had no way of gripping it. None at all. He'd have been better off punching through it, if that had any shot of working.

He swore softly, and heard a gasp somewhere behind him. He spotted a walk-in wardrobe.

_Surely not . . ._

But there was no mistaking that his super senses were telling him Hinata was curled up inside, shaking, in spite of the older man's orders. And in spite of himself, Naruto could smell her in there, smell her fear, her sweat . . . her blood . . . Somehow his body knew it was after hers.

He swallowed as he stepped towards the wardrobe, knowing what he had to do. This was his mission, after all. The whole reason he came. _I don't even really know how, _he thought, reaching for the door. _Is it like the movies? Do I just grab and . . . bite? _He ran the tip of his tongue over his sharp fangs, now a year old, but still unused. It was strange how he didn't miss eating. Wasn't it in every story that a new vampire had an immediate craving for blood, the way a zombie craved brains? But he felt no such lust. He wasn't even sure he'd like the taste.

The door of the wardrobe swung open under his touch and, unsurprisingly, he found himself standing over a cowering Hinata. She made no move to run, nor to blow her whistle or defend herself.

_I guess this is it, then. _

Naruto really had no idea what he was doing. He wished Sasuke were here, watching, giving him tips and words of encouragement.

Yeah, that sounded like Sasuke, all right.

Hinata's eyes were watering, and she whispered something under her breath seemingly to herself. With a stab of awkwardness, Naruto heard perfectly: "I'm sorry, Papa, I've let you down. I'm sorry for being so weak."

It tugged at Naruto's heart that these would be this girl's last words in this life. How the hell was he supposed to just kill her? He knew if Sasuke _was _here, he'd have a big scowl plastered on his face as he told Naruto to just get on with it. But it wasn't that easy!

He crouched, getting down on Hinata's level. "I don't think you're weak," he said gently, but not patronisingly; she was probably a bit older than him, after all.

Hinata stared at him blankly, confused. Fair enough; presumably not many kidnappers or murderers took the time to reassure their would-be victims.

"I mean," Naruto continued, "would we really have to take you if you were? There's no way we'd be sent out after someone who wasn't really strong, deep down."

He knew it was stupid to give a pep talk to her. If worst came to worst, it would turn out to be a great speech that convinced her to beat him up and escape – then if it turned out she _was _as strong as Neji, just very, very timid, he was screwed.

She didn't look very swayed by his words, though. But she did say, barely audibly, "Th- thank you."

Argh, what was Naruto supposed to do? She was _thanking _him now! He couldn't kill her, he just couldn't, and no amount of sensing her blood could bring him to do it, even if it wasn't a real death.

He bit his lip, making a decision he hoped he wouldn't regret. "Hinata, okay, listen to me. Is there a way out of here?"

Hinata made a small squeak.

"_Is there a way out of the house?"_ Naruto asked more urgently.

Eventually Hinata shook her head, causing Naruto's stomach to knot up in anxiety, but then she spoke. "But . . . but if you can go out my window when Papa unlocks everything, no one will see you. He should do that soon, when he realises I didn't get outside."

Naruto gaped, not really having expected to get anything out of her. But she was giving him help! "Isn't the window locked? Alarmed?"

"I could – I could open it for you."

It was too good to be true, but he believed her. Her soft voice didn't sound like it could carry a lie even to save her life. "Okay. Last thing: my friend is somewhere inside. Did you see him?"

Hinata shook her head again, still trembling, but somehow less afraid. "I think Papa was still in the kitchen when he yelled out, though."

"Where's the kitchen?" Naruto wasn't enthusiastic about searching all of downstairs, especially after hearing those footsteps on the stairs behind him.

"Right under this room."

Right under . . . Naruto looked at the floor. Downstairs, it had looked and felt like solid marble, but this room's was ordinary tiling – unusual for a bedroom, like its use was merely an afterthought. Maybe the room had only recently been added or something. If so, he was sorry for the damage he was going to do to it.

"Thanks," he told Hinata gratefully. "I won't hurt you, I won't do anything, just keep hiding. I never saw you. No one has to know."

* * *

Unbeknownst to Naruto, though, Sasuke knew. He heard every traitorous word.

* * *

**A/N: Even more Hyuuga badassery next chapter! I know not everyone loves them as much as I do, but ah well, I can hope. By the way, how easy is it to review stories nowadays, with the handy review box _right there_? No hint intended, totally.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note:** Hmm, so moving to a new place and putting the computer in a spot without good wireless access is not so much fun. It's taken me like an hour, and copious refreshing in both Google Chrome _and _Internet Explorer, to get this uploaded. Turned out Explorer was the one that worked, so unlike everyone else on the Internet, I stand by it.

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful feedback from the last chapter! You guys really pushed me to get this one out in a week :D

I do also have one question that I suppose I should ask before it gets too late: I love reading smut, and it exists on so many levels; I already obviously know that this story is going to get rather smutty in _hopefully _not too many chapters, but I haven't yet figured out how detailed to make it. Keeping within this site's rating system, of course... like every author does... should I be sparing, tastefully graphic, or full-on graphic? I'd really appreciate getting an idea of what you think would be best!

* * *

**Failure**

After his little acrobatic performance in the bathroom, Sasuke had not questioned his decision to leave Naruto high and dry. If Naruto were to be given any chances, he had thrown them all out by choosing to ignore Sasuke's directions and go breaking through windows at full volume, not even vaguely considering the consequences. No; far better for him to remain stuck outside while Sasuke did the real work. Besides, Sasuke was in his element now. Having someone else tag along would only hinder him.

He had wandered down the hallway without any particular worry, taking his time, scanning the décor without touching anything in case it was alarmed. The place was full of priceless objects from ancient artefacts to modern art, all of which Sasuke noticed, but none of which he cared about. He had never been much of a collector. He glanced through an open archway – honestly, an _archway _– and saw that it led to a staircase upwards. He would normally consider heading up and hiding in the victim's bedroom until she went to sleep, but according to Shikamaru, she may not have even had a room in this house: the previous generation of Hyuugas had twin boys, Neji and Hinata's fathers, but for whatever reason they were raised in the two adjacent houses separately. It seemed odd, but then Sasuke was hardly an authority on spending time with brothers.

He passed the stairs and rounded a corner that showed an open door, the first he'd encountered that wasn't obviously locked fast. He assumed this meant the remainder of the family was in there, and a cursory look told him he was right. There were only two, as he had heard earlier, even though he knew there were supposed to be at least five others. Most likely they were in the other house.

Both Hyuugas that he could see were shuffling around a spectacular kitchen, a palate of granite and marble that stretched on three times as long as any other. There was a girl, Sasuke's target, excusing herself after putting away a collection of plates and leaving through a second door. The other one was an older man, probably her father, watching her with scrutiny. When she left, he heaved a sigh and turned in Sasuke's direction, but he stopped almost immediately.

Now, Sasuke was by no means stupid, but having been a vampire for multiple centuries with zero failures under his belt, he had perhaps become a bit too accustomed to success. That was why he remained calm and unworried, even when the man's eyes bulged as they locked onto Sasuke's own. It wasn't until the man let out a foreboding roar that the unbelievable reality hit Sasuke.

He was visible.

He shouldn't have been visible, not having tasted blood in weeks, but he was.

Worst of all, he had been warned about this by Naruto. He was wrong, and Naruto was right.

He would fume about that later. At this point he had no choice but to flee from the doorway and retreat somewhere until he could come up with a plan that included this new information. He sped past the staircase, planning to escape via the bathroom, for some reason not hearing the Hyuuga man pursuing him: that became understandable when an alarm rang throughout the entire house, accompanied by a grinding noise that must have been the doors and windows locking down. He felt vibrations of footsteps coming towards him – but from in front, not behind – so he had to quickly dive behind a large, ornamental plant to hide himself. He felt like an idiot, hiding from humans, but he was nothing if not adaptable to new challenges.

Hinata Hyuuga raced past and up the stairs, not noticing Sasuke at all. He was surprised to realise she had been stranded inside during the lockdown, wondering if the father had let that happen intentionally to lure out her attackers. Whether the man himself was inside, Sasuke didn't know.

Moments later, it was Naruto running down the hallway, which sent Sasuke quickly into a fury: how the hell did he make it inside when everything was blocked? He couldn't possibly have copied Sasuke's feat of getting over the floor sensors, unless maybe the girl had turned them off and intercepted him. If that was the case . . . Naruto may have actually been doing the right thing, following her. He dashed up the stairs four at a time, as usual making too much noise. Hardly daring to believe it, Sasuke joined the pursuit, just waiting for the moment when Naruto screwed up. It _had _to happen. He couldn't outdo Sasuke on his first mission – not on _any _mission!

As Sasuke climbed to the second floor, frustration tore at him, telling him the only one who had screwed up here was himself. It was painful to admit and he absolutely dreaded the prospect of telling the Council. Being scolded for flouting the rules and for failing a mission were two very different things. Moreover, he couldn't bear the thought of Naruto realising that he, Sasuke, wasn't infallible, and losing the case of hero worship he seemed to have. Just as difficult to admit was how much Sasuke enjoyed being part of a pair, especially a pair in which he was the smart, experienced one, and he didn't want that dynamic to change.

There was only one door left ajar upstairs, and very audible movement came from inside. He sidled up against the jamb, cautious before entering, but ready to intervene should Naruto let the situation get out of hand.

Naruto's voice was quiet, but no problem for Sasuke's hearing. ". . . no way we'd be sent after someone who wasn't really strong, deep down."

Sasuke frowned. That certainly sounded like a screw-up waiting to happen. He would have thought 'don't talk to your victims' was such a fundamental rule that it went without saying, but apparently even that needed spelling out for Naruto.

As Sasuke continued listening, his frown deepened and he began to clench his teeth until all his features were firmly in a snarl. What did Naruto think he was doing?

What the _fuck _did he think he was doing?

'_I never saw you. No one has to know.' _He couldn't possibly be serious, throwing the mission away because of his goddamned conscience, deliberately failing and betraying all of them. Betraying Sasuke, immediately after calling him a friend, after calling him a good guy; sure, that one was some time ago, but he hadn't forgotten. He thought about storming into the bedroom and knocking some sense into Naruto, but at the last second he went back down the stairs in disgust. He knew it wasn't a smart move, but for once he didn't care about doing what was smart.

Halfway down the stairs yet another odd noise shook the floor, a heavy rumble, but Sasuke was fuming so much he didn't stop to consider it. Another mistake – and one that he realised instantly as something came flying at him through the air.

It came so fast that it was nothing but a blur, but Sasuke managed to twist out of the way and, with a crunch, the object hit and embedded into the wall right behind where his head had been. It was an arrow.

Suddenly Sasuke was fully on alert, heart pounding in a way that he didn't even know it could, as he locked eyes with Neji Hyuuga.

They glared at each other briefly before Neji whipped another arrow into his compound bow, which was of course in his hands and pointing at the stairs. Not wasting a second, Sasuke dived over the bannister, landing crouched on the marble of the ground floor, then he chose a direction and ran. He chose the way into the kitchen because it involved going around a sharp corner instead of in a risky straight line. Also, from what he could tell, the front door was almost directly through the kitchen's other exit, and if Neji had made it in, that door must have been unlocked. As long as the father wasn't waiting just outside to ambush . . .

Sasuke darted in and Neji wasn't far behind. The situation could hardly have been more dire, but this was exactly why Sasuke spend all his time training his body and mind in the hardest way he could. He was the One, and no barely-adult human was going to get the better of him.

He ducked behind the kitchen island and, taking a risk, screwed his eyes shut and tried to calm his breathing.

Neji's footsteps were dangerously close, but they had slowed down. He made a noise of disbelief, and spoke for the first time. "I don't know why you people bother coming here if all you're going to do is run away."

Sasuke drove the voice from his head. He needed complete concentration for this. If the Hyuugas were, for whatever reason, able to see through vampires' normal level of invisibility, maybe only Sasuke's unique level would be enough. It took time, time he didn't really have, but he could control the artificial blood in his body to the extent that he could become invisible to even the best vampires, as long as he stayed still. He didn't need long, just one moment to throw Neji off.

Of course, he might not get such an opportunity. Neji rounded the island, his bow clinking with every step, and it sounded loaded. "Do we get to find out why you're after us this time? I actually had to stab someone last time in self-defence, and I'd like to know exactly what I defended myself _from_."

He stopped barely six inches from Sasuke's feet.

"Interesting trick."

Sasuke took that to mean his ability had worked. Using the opportunity he'd created, he lashed out with his right leg and kicked at the bow. He connected, and although it didn't fall from Neji's hands, the nocked arrow was flung across the room. Surprise and anger registered on Neji's face as he reached for a new arrow, but Sasuke didn't plan on giving him the chance: he leapt up, knowing he was completely visible again already, and threw a well-aimed punch at Neji's throat. Neji brought up an arm to block it, but there was only so much he could do against Sasuke's inhuman strength. Sasuke's fist managed to catch him only slightly off target; Neji's breath hitched painfully and he staggered backwards.

Sasuke was tempted to hit him again, but he wasn't here for that. Still furious about Naruto, he had almost forgotten the mission completely, but a little bit of violence seemed to help him focus. He needed to get outside and take the time to invent a new strategy that accounted for the Hyuugas' unnatural sight and the fact that they knew he was here.

As for Naruto . . .

Well, he could stay cosy and safe up there with that Hinata. And if Sasuke had to go through him to get to her later, fine.

Sasuke stormed off towards the kitchen door. Just for security, he turned for one last look at Neji, and it was extremely lucky he did: while a cross to the throat was usually enough to keep someone incapacitated or at least very distracted for some time, Neji proved to be the exception rather than the rule yet again. He was stable, standing, bow raised and ready to shoot.

It made that classic, solid 'twang', and Sasuke ducked. But while he had assumed Neji would aim for his head, the arrow instead flew at his knee level – and when he ducked, it was his right thigh that caught the full force.

To his credit, he only made a strangled exhalation when he was hit, and didn't even lose his footing. The arrow was lodged in deeply, he could feel it, and he almost wished it had gone all the way through. It seemed remarkable that it hadn't. Unfortunately for him, running was out of the question, and Neji was walking triumphantly closer.

"Good hit," Neji commented. His voice sounded a little strained after the assault on his throat. "Yours, I mean. Mine wasn't quite right, but it seems to have done its job."

Sasuke said nothing. He wasn't going to be drawn into conversing with this guy; instead he was focusing on the remaining three arrows in the quiver. If he could cause Neji to lose them . . .

"I don't really want to kill you, you know, if I can help it. Did the one ten years ago die? _Can _you die?"

All Neji needed to do was get right up close, and Sasuke would have him. Sasuke wasn't intimidated, certainly wasn't scared, just because of a little setback. He'd been injured before. Not on a job, and certainly not by being shot with a bow (which hurt, and damn it, he was going to have to pull it out soon, and that would be excruciating). Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on not letting his leg buckle.

Neji unsmilingly gave Sasuke a once-over. "You're not normal, are you?"

And Sasuke couldn't help it: he emitted a small grunt of pain before answering, "You figured that out all by yourself, did you?"

A strange thump came from somewhere over their heads. Neji looked up, and Sasuke took the opportunity to hit out at him with an open palm. It hit, but only just, and Neji looked angry enough to retaliate. The thumping noise happened again, but this time neither of their glares left the other, and they both seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"What happened to the other one? The gormless blonde?" Neji demanded.

Sasuke felt a bubble of anger as well. "Don't talk about him."

"I don't think you're really in any position to be evasive. That's four questions I've asked you now, and I plan on getting some answers for my family. You can start giving them at any time, though I'd advise sooner rather than later. My uncle isn't happy about his kids being attacked, and he'll do worse to you than I will."

That must have been saying something, if Sasuke believed it. But he was very sceptical and, again, did not want to converse with Neji. He took a slow, laboured step backwards.

The thumping noise came again, this time accompanied by a groan from the ceiling. Sasuke looked; Neji didn't. This time it was a mistake not to look: the ceiling crunched and crackled and some paint sprinkled off, then the whole thing caved in above them. Pieces of plaster and tile went everywhere, causing absolute chaos, and Sasuke threw himself back to avoid the majority of the fallout. Blood rushed to his ears as his leg screamed in protest, but he staggered to his feet again as quickly as possible to process what had just happened. His eyes had seen it, but he could hardly believe it. In the middle of the mess of rubble, Naruto was lying where he'd landed after falling through the ceiling from the second storey. More fantastic still, he had slammed into Neji on his way down, and the Hyuuga must have cracked his head on the marble floor because he appeared to be unconscious.

Naruto, on the other hand, was fine. "Sasuke!" he declared, much too loudly. "You _are _here!"

"What – what the hell is this?" Sasuke asked. He was so stunned he actually stuttered.

"Hin- I mean – I thought I heard you down here, and I wanted to get to you quickly, so I punched a hole through the floor. I found an open window upstairs, so we should go. Like, right now."

The urgency in his voice was clear, as were the lies. Sasuke knew full well that Hinata had told Naruto where he was, had opened the bedroom window to help them escape. Why, he had no clue – maybe she was just stupid. But he didn't call Naruto out on it. That could wait.

"Do you have any idea how lucky you are not to be dead right now?" he said vehemently, but Naruto wasn't listening; he had just discovered on whom he had landed, and he jumped off like he'd been burnt.

"Oh, wow. Is that . . . the bow guy? Did _I _do that? Shit, I hope I didn't kill him – not that I'm not glad he's down – but should I check his pulse or something?"

"He's probably just feigning it to make you get closer," Sasuke growled. "I'd believe it of him."

"Did you – no way, you didn't _fight _him, did you?" Naruto looked horrified, and even more so when he spotted Sasuke's thigh. "Sasuke . . . uh . . . Sasuke, there's an arrow in your leg."

"I realise that."

"No, there's _actually an arrow in your leg._"

"Don't act all worried for my wellbeing when you've already done enough damage!" Sasuke snapped. "I can handle it. We do need to get out, so fine, we'll take your window, but after that you – you just shut up and do nothing."

That made Naruto look a little deflated, but Sasuke stood firm. Why should he have to feel guilty?

"You want a hand climbing up?" Naruto asked, voice low now, gesturing at the hole in the ceiling.

"No."

"Come on, I want to help."

"I don't want your help. Besides – " Pointing at Neji's limp body, Sasuke added, " – you should carry him instead."

Naruto blinked, confused. "Why? Are we taking him?"

"If we don't have the girl, we should take something. We _won't _get the girl, I suppose?"

"N- no." Naruto tried very hard to look innocent. "I think she got away. Or maybe she went into a panic room and locked herself in so we couldn't reach her. That's possible, right?"

"Of course," Sasuke said crossly.

A failed mission. Alarms tripped. The wrong victim, perhaps only good as a hostage. This was an absolute disaster, and it was eating away at him that he, Sasuke, the One, was going to have his name attached to such a travesty. Maybe he could play the injury card for some leniency . . . the thought sickened him, but he would if he had to.

Naruto uncertainly knelt down beside Neji, hands avoiding contact as if he didn't know how to pick someone up. "Should we – you know – bite him?"

"No. The Council doesn't want him, so we don't bother until it's safe to kill him. There's no point becoming visible now."

"Really? Because I would've thought there was no point _not _biting him, since we're visible to these people anyway."

"These people, yes, but what about all the other thousands of people we pass on the way back?"

"What, your plan is to drag a body all over the country while invisible? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You don't think that'll freak people out?"

Sasuke felt like his insides were boiling. Naruto kept challenging him, undermining him, going behind his back, and it was infuriating. Did he conspire with Hinata to take Neji instead, too? Maybe that was why Naruto was pressing the issue so hard. Maybe Hinata secretly hated her cousin and seized the chance to get him out of the picture by fraternising with Naruto, who was probably infatuated with her . . . no, that wasn't right, Naruto wasn't attracted to women . . .

Either way, _Sasuke _was in control here. Not Naruto. "Just get out. It's ridiculous to discuss this while we're still inside."

Naruto's eyebrows furrowed, causing him to look hurt. "Fine."

While he reached his arms around Neji to get him into an awkward bridal-style position, Sasuke brought himself to ignore the awful pain and jump up as high as he could for the ceiling. It was high, but he managed, and pulling himself through the hole was only marginally harder than getting over the front gates. Now in the bedroom, he looked squarely at the walk-in wardrobe, where he knew Hinata was hiding. Once Naruto got out of the house, Sasuke was going to go in there and get her.

"Should I just throw him?" Naruto's voice inquired from below.

"You can shoot him up with his own bow for all I care," Sasuke replied irritably.

"Okay, heads up." Like a huge ragdoll, Neji's body was flung up and thudded on the bedroom floor. Still mildly conscious, his eyelids flickered in discomfort, but then stopped. He must have hit his head very hard, Sasuke noted. Most likely he was heavily concussed. Well, one way or another, he wasn't coming out of this unscathed, so it didn't matter if his brain was a bit shaken up. It was good revenge for shooting Sasuke.

Naruto clambered up after, doing a pull-up that would put gym junkies to shame. He looked at the window and grinned, for it was left ajar, obviously by Hinata.

"We're good to go," he said.

"All right. You head out and I'll come down after."

To his credit, Naruto hesitated. His eyes shot with hurried panic to the wardrobe as he guessed Sasuke's plan. "Maybe you should go first. You're injured; if someone finds us in here, I can escape faster if I'm left behind."

"If you're concerned about my ability to defend myself, you should go first to make sure we aren't walking straight into the rest of the family."

"I think that's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"Because." Now he looked nervous. Good. "I just really think you should go first. Please."

"No," said Sasuke, not relenting.

Naruto's shoulders sagged in defeat, disappointment written all over his face. "All right, fine. I'll go. Just . . . please come right after me, okay? Don't wait around, or I might do something stupid and get in trouble."

Then he grabbed Neji's body again and heaved it towards the window. Even though Sasuke had won, this in itself aroused suspicion: if Naruto cared so much about Hinata Hyuuga's life, surely he had given up a bit too easily? There was more to this than met the eye. Still, once Naruto was balancing his way down the side of the house, trying not to drag Neji's feet along the tiles, Sasuke moved gingerly to the wardrobe, thrusting it open with a ferocity unbefitting of his injured body.

To his surprise – or perhaps not – Hinata was not there.

Sasuke muttered a swear. She must have crawled away during the commotion in the kitchen, possibly even escaping to her father, and Naruto had almost definitely wasted as much breath as he could arguing in order to buy her some time. Naruto _knew _that Sasuke wouldn't stop the pursuit so easily.

"That . . . idiot," Sasuke whispered dangerously. He was so angry, so absolutely enraged at this point that he couldn't even feel it building up inside him anymore; it couldn't build any higher, so it had just frozen where it was, threatening to explode, but incapable of moving enough to actually go through with it. He felt numb, numb with ire. Even his leg pain had gone insensate.

With no options left, he slammed the door shut and went to the window. He could see Naruto down on the ground now, peeking around a corner to see if the path to the front gates was clear. From above, Sasuke had to admit there was something to Naruto's point about invisibly carrying Neji around: he looked practically dead, and if it looked to humans like he was a floating corpse, that could be one more thing to add to the list of unfortunate problems this mission had faced. Biting him _could _be a good idea – it would keep him paralysed, unable to wake up at an inopportune moment, and whoever bit him could pretend to be hauling home an intoxicated friend.

Sasuke climbed out the window, closing it behind him, and slowly made his way down the slanted first-storey roof. When he reached the end, he grimaced as he saw that the only way off was to jump. That was going to hurt.

Suddenly, Naruto was beneath him. "How's it going?"

"None of your business," Sasuke growled, still stinging from the most recent betrayal.

"I know you don't like asking for help, but . . . "

"Stop it."

"I'm just saying . . . "

"No!"

"Would you stop being so freaking precious?" Naruto was trying to find a balance between shouting and whispering, and his frustration was winning out. "Maybe if you'd just let me help you earlier, you wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place!"

Sasuke glared. "Don't you dare make yourself out to be some kind of hero, Naruto! The only reason I got shot was because you had the chance to kill Hinata Hyuuga and you didn't take it!"

It hung in the air for a moment. Then Naruto said, "O- okay. I can explain that. But we need to get out of here first, so let's do that. I can – "

"Stop trying to help!" Sasuke exploded.

Sick of this, he stopped balancing on the edge of the roof and leaned until he fell off. There came the rush of falling in his stomach, lasting just a fraction of a second longer than he expected, and along with it came the dreaded knowledge that no matter how much he contorted himself, he was going to smash his injured leg right on the gravel.

But right before the impact – and he saw it as if in slow motion – Naruto cast aside Neji's body and practically flew to where Sasuke was about to land. He grabbed him around the waist and twisted, mid-leap, so that they collapsed in a dusty pile. Sasuke was on top of Naruto, and miraculously all his weight was on his upper half. His leg was still filled with stabbing pain, but it wasn't worse, not at all.

"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted.

"Trying to stop you from killing yourself out of spite!"

"I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, Naruto, but you have no idea what you're doing! You refuse to let a human die, you refuse to let me die – which I would _not _have done – and I suppose you think there's nothing wrong with that, don't you? Do you not realise that you're going to have to take a side?"

"A side? Seriously, a _side?" _Naruto actually laughed, though there was no humour in it. "And you think there's something wrong with _me! _Is it really that weird for you to meet someone who isn't okay with murder? Isn't there any side for someone like that?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth. "I'm so sick of you maligning me about this. If you hate us so much, leave!"

"I never said I hated you! I just think you're better than house invasion and killing girls in their bedrooms!"

"Well, I'm not!"

The two of them glared at each other, breathing heavily.

"Yes, you are," Naruto said.

"No. Don't start."

"I've known you for two years."

"You've only been conscious for one. You don't know a thing about me."

"I've gotten a pretty good idea. But then again, this is probably the most words you've ever said at once, so I guess I do still have a few things to learn."

Somehow the anger was fading. The tension of the situation hadn't diffused, but neither of them could bring himself to keep yelling. Naruto's eyes were filled with challenge, as if he had just come up with a perfect way to win a competition, but Sasuke didn't feel challenged. He didn't know what he felt.

"You've completely ruined this mission," he said.

Naruto nodded. "I know. I'm sorry, but this is not for me. I wish it wasn't for you, either." He paused. "Ah. Should we move?"

He squirmed a little to make his point, so Sasuke assented and rolled off him. Funny how they had ended up in this sort of position twice in one day – three times if one were to count them being pressed up against each other at the train station.

As if reading his mind, Naruto commented, "One thing I'm sure I know about you: this is the most physical contact you've had with someone else in over three hundred years, right?"

Sasuke didn't dignify that with an answer.

"Okay, I'll feel special later."

Not out of the woods yet, Naruto picked up Neji, and Sasuke stood up carefully. Neji emitted a soft, dazed groan as he was lifted, which made Naruto look nervous about holding him. For whatever stupid reason, Sasuke felt compelled to reassure him.

"As soon as we get off the property, you can bite him. Then you won't have to worry about him waking up."

Annoyingly, Naruto didn't look reassured, but he began moving anyway. He even said, sounding a bit bemused, "Are we good?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. He'd been doing that a _lot _since befriending Naruto. "No. Not even close."

And he meant it. He was still furious, and fully intended to let Naruto know about it later.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note: **Exams over, moved house, Internet working, loads of free time - I've got it all now! Time for lots of writing! Also, thanks to a kick up the butt from a recent review, I'm going to be updating one of my centuries-old stories, _The Break-Up_. And I'll do my best to catch up on my others, too. So if the next chapter takes a bit of time, that'll be why.

* * *

**The Value of the Victim**

Naruto hardly dared believe that he got out of the Hyuuga compound alive. Stuck between a sadistic family (minus Hinata, who of course was a walking miracle) and a livid Sasuke, it looked like someone was definitely going to kill him, yet against all odds he made it back over the front gates unscathed. Even though it must have taken the Hyuugas all of five seconds to discover that Neji was gone and in his place was a gaping hole where the kitchen ceiling used to be, no one had come to stop them. Maybe, just maybe, Hinata had bought Naruto some time, just like he had bought her some time.

However it happened, he and Sasuke made it out by the skin of their teeth, only once they had, they realised that Shikamaru was not where they had left him. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. This led to another brief argument in which Naruto got an unnerving glimpse into Sasuke's intermittent heartlessness.

"Just keep moving."

"But what if something's happened to him?"

"He's wandered off somewhere."

"What if the family caught him?"

"It would be his problem, not ours."

"Seriously? What if they tie him up, prod and poke at him, and somehow find out he's a vampire? Then it'll definitely be your problem."

"If that happened – and it didn't, but on the off-chance he _did _get captured – he would be smart enough to think of a way to kill himself without leaving behind any evidence."

Yeah, Sasuke could border on terrifyingly callous sometimes. Luckily for everyone, they ended up finding Shikamaru circling around all the way back at the train station. He didn't look as if he had gone through anything life-threatening, or even life-slightly-disturbing, which made Naruto suspect he'd only left because sitting outside the Hyuuga house had become boring to him. Strangely, Shikamaru didn't seem all that surprised to see Neji instead of Hinata.

"Looks like you had trouble making up your minds," he commented. "You haven't even bitten him yet. Were you planning on letting him go?"

"Of course not," said Sasuke. "Should we have done it in the house, completely exposed?"

"Well, you'd better get on it. He could be up and killing again at any moment."

It was a valid point. On the walk down, Neji had managed to stir himself awake twice, and Sasuke had had to give him a sharp whack on the side of the head to keep him down. Naruto had winced both times, but he couldn't really blame Sasuke for being rough, after everything that had happened.

Naruto suddenly noticed that the other two were looking at him expectantly. He had no idea why. "Sorry?"

"Hurry it up. I want to get home." Shikamaru sighed boredly and turned away. Naruto gulped.

"You want me to bite him now?"

"It can't wait much longer," said Sasuke.

"Right." If preparing to bite Hinata had been nerve-racking, it was nothing compared to this, being watched like a hawk in the open country, where anyone could just walk by. Naruto normally wasn't one to get stage fright, but right now he felt like problems were coming at him from all sides.

He stared at Neji, lying on the ground where he'd been dropped out of exhaustion earlier, his eyes closed and arms lax by his sides. The fingers on his left hand were decidedly curled as if holding something, which Naruto assumed was from muscle memory after years of practising archery. His temples were slightly bruised from where Sasuke had hit him and, presumably, from where Naruto had landed on him. His long hair was a mess.

Naruto knelt down and leaned uncertainly towards Neji's neck, but his mouth was firmly closed.

_Come on, _he urged himself. _It's easy. You're a vampire, this should come naturally to you. Just get a bit closer . . . okay, ignore the fact that you can smell him. Huh, smells like shampoo. I guess that figures, he must have to use about a tonne of it. Oh, wow, that's his pulse. Creepy. No, focus! Come on! You've kissed someone on the neck before, how is this any different?_

He wrinkled his nose. Obviously it was different.

"Hurry up," Sasuke said impatiently.

"I'm getting to it!" Naruto protested. "Give me a minute, here."

"You know, you don't have to bite his neck. Anywhere with a lot of blood flow is fine."

"Well, you could've told me that earlier!"

A bit irritably, Naruto seized Neji's wrist instead. That felt a lot less personal, a lot less like he was invading the space of a person who had passed out. As he sat there, breathing, hesitating, he began to have some guilty thoughts again. Violent and potentially deadly though he was, Neji was a person with a family, a family he tried to protect; and since Naruto hadn't actually been present at the time, for all he knew, Sasuke getting shot could have been a terrible accident and not on purpose. However, even stronger than guilt was his nausea at the idea of drinking blood – sure, he could lick a drop of his own off his thumb if he pricked it, but not a body-full of someone else's. Just picturing it was disgusting.

He grimaced and turned his eyes from the body to Sasuke, who raised an eyebrow.

"Problem?"

"Well . . . yeah," Naruto confessed.

"Weak stomach?"

"I don't know, maybe. It's just not something I've ever done before and it's kind of awkward. I can't be the only vampire to have ever hesitated the first time drinking blood!"

Sasuke angled his head thoughtfully as he considered. "You're the only one I've seen who's hesitated. But then, you're the only one I've ever chaperoned, so I wouldn't know."

"Great." Naruto swallowed uneasily. "I don't suppose you want to do me a huge favour – "

"By doing it for you? I don't think so."

"Please? I'll owe you, I'll owe you big time."

He could almost hear Sasuke's waspish response before it came: _you already owe me! _Right after all the Hinata business, this really wasn't the time to ask favours, but Naruto couldn't help it. He wasn't ready for this side of being a vampire yet. He held his breath and waited for Sasuke to snap at him.

It didn't happen. Instead, after a long silence, Sasuke said, "You know you'll have to do it eventually. You may not get an opportunity as easy as this one."

Naruto's heart sped up hopefully. "I know. I'll be ready next time, I swear."

"Fine."

Hardly daring to believe it, overcome with relief and gratitude, Naruto as good as threw Neji at Sasuke. Neji's face creased into a discomfited frown as he was apparently returning to hazy consciousness again, but it meant little as Sasuke crouched down – slowly, of course – and moved towards his neck and bit down. Naruto wasn't sure he wanted to watch, but he couldn't help himself.

It felt like voyeurism of the most intrusive kind: even as close as he was, it was impossible to distinguish this deadly act from a steamy kiss. Sasuke's face and hands were buried in Neji's hair as his lips locked onto that pale neck; his expression was mostly neutral, but by now Naruto had become talented at noticing its subtle changes, and he knew it was expressing pleasure. Deep pleasure. And as it went on, Sasuke's entire body began to change, and Naruto understood that this was him becoming visible. It was just a small change, but it made him look more human, more like he was enjoying an intensely human experience. He could have been Neji's boyfriend, leaving him a love bite. It was so hard to tell the difference even though Naruto _knew _what was really going on; there was such a hedonistic, sensuous feel to it – almost erotic.

To his embarrassment, Naruto realised his mouth was slightly open and his breath was coming out strangely. The scene had transfixed him.

He tried to wet his dry lips and ignore whatever semi-formed thoughts and images began twisting their way into his mind. He tried to remind himself that this was Sasuke, this was a three-hundred-year-old vampire Messiah, and this was essentially a murder in progress, but it was difficult. The sight of Sasuke 'kissing' Neji was burning into his retinas and giving him a tight feeling in his stomach. He had to acknowledge that he didn't want Sasuke kissing Neji.

Not for the first time, it was like Sasuke could read his mind. He carefully drew himself away from Neji, leaving no trace of anything on him except a single puncture mark, completely clotted. He must have only used one fang to break the skin. His lips, too, were perfectly clean, but when he spoke, his tongue looked darker in colour than usual.

"You're supposed to take the minimum amount of blood that would kill them, so that whether they're accepted or not, Inuzuka can drain and store the rest for everyone else's use. You take about a third; any more and they won't be able to talk later, so get good at measuring."

Naruto forced himself to nod like he found that wildly interesting, like he wasn't now vividly picturing how Sasuke must have done that to _his _neck two years ago.

_It wouldn't have looked anything like that_, the stern, logical part of his brain argued. _You were awake, you were trying to fight him off, remember? You thought you'd been stabbed!_

Yeah, that sounded familiar. Maybe. With most of his mind full of this imagery, it was hard to hear the logical side of things. Damn it, was being back in the open air turning him slowly insane, or did he just secretly enjoy thinking about inappropriate things at inappropriate times? Either way, he told himself firmly that he wasn't an animal, nor a dumb, hormonal teenager. He could control himself.

The idea that he might find Sasuke even a little bit attractive was way too disconcerting.

"Are you finished?" Shikamaru called over his shoulder. "The train's on its way in. Last one for the night."

It was indeed late, and so far out in the country there was very little artificial light to give them direction, not that they needed it. Now that he was visible, it became Sasuke's job to carry Neji all the way back; although he made no noise of complaint, lifting Neji's body was clearly a strain.

"Sasuke," Shikamaru said.

"What?"

"There's an arrow in your leg."

* * *

The train tips and walk back to the caves felt, if it was even possible, longer. Much longer. While on the way out they had been cautiously keeping themselves undetected, on the way back they had no such luxury, getting nervous every time someone looked at Sasuke for too long. He handled it well, saying perfunctorily to the strangers, "He's had a big night," and nodding towards Neji, who looked asleep on his shoulder. Sasuke particularly emphasised the word 'he' – Naruto assumed this was in case, like with himself, anyone thought Neji was a girl at first glance. Not that he looked feminine at all now that Naruto was used to him, but the precaution was probably wise. The sight of Sasuke dragging around a girl's unconscious body was sure to garner more unwanted attention.

Naruto didn't get a chance to explore his old neighbourhood. He didn't really expect to, but he couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment as he saw a street sign emblazoned with the name of the hospital where Sakura worked. Assuming she still worked there. He missed her more than he could put into words, and he knew not to say anything about it, as Sasuke had made it perfectly clear that even the slightest mention of Sakura was annoying to him. It sucked, and Naruto definitely didn't plan on shutting up about her forever, but now wasn't the time to push Sasuke any further.

When they made it back to the tunnels at last, a lot of the tension on the three of them eased off. Shikamaru took a turn carrying Neji (after a bevy of complaints), and Sasuke paused to examine his leg wound, having pulled out the arrow on the first train ride. However, Naruto had a growing, internal unease of his own: worry about how the Third would react to news of the mission. It was all his, Naruto's, fault that they were bringing back the wrong Hyuuga, and he was sure to be in big trouble for it. What did vampires do when they wanted to punish one of their own? Throw them in the pit with Gaara for a week?

Then another horrible thought occurred to him. He turned to Shikamaru, who was behind him; in spite of his injury, Sasuke had driven on ahead, as usual.

"Shikamaru," Naruto said urgently. "They are going to turn this guy into a vampire, right? They're not going to just let him die."

"First Sasuke, now Neji Hyuuga?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow scrutinisingly. "You find strange people to form an attachment to."

"I'm not attached! I just don't want to have killed him and it to all be for nothing!"

"Well, his blood would sustain one of us for about a decade. That's not nothing. But if you really want my opinion, one Hyuuga will be just as good as another. They should accept him."

Naruto wasn't completely convinced, but it was good to hear the reassurance, anyway. He decided to change the subject. "So, you remember before when you said Sasuke and I were like you and Temari?"

"Been thinking about it?"

"No shit, I've been thinking about it! You're wrong. Totally wrong. I just wanted to make sure you knew that."

Shikamaru shrugged. "Okay."

"I mean it."

"So do I. It doesn't bother me what you do or don't do."

It still felt like he was insinuating something, but not enough for Naruto to refute. Feeling like he had somehow lost, he walked on in silence.

Climbing down the steep passages was a million times easier than climbing up, so it wasn't all that long before they ran into an on-duty Temari, who laughed scornfully at the fact that Shikamaru was doing the heavy lifting part of the job. She then ordered Naruto and Sasuke to keep walking while she briefly detained – and probably lightly molested – her boyfriend. After not too many minutes, though, all three of them found themselves in front of Hayate's desk as he shuffled off to alert the Third. Naruto's insides were squirming with nerves.

The leader of the Elders approached them with a look of utter bemusement on his face. Shikamaru dropped Neji's body on the ground.

"Apparently it was an eventful night," he commented.

The Third said nothing for a long while, staring at the victim, then at Sasuke's leg, then back again. His eyebrows kept furrowing and unfurrowing like his thoughts were conflicting inside his head, and twice he bent down over Neji's face to get a closer look. Finally, he uttered, "This was not what I was expecting."

Neither Naruto, Sasuke nor Shikamaru responded. The Third's reaction wasn't yet clear.

"Who is responsible for this?" he asked quietly; ominously.

Without so much as a look, Sasuke answered firmly, "Naruto."

Naruto winced, but he knew he shouldn't have been surprised. After everything he had done to screw up the mission, being thrown under the bus was the least he should have expected.

"Naruto?" inquired the Third.

"I . . . yeah, it's my fault. I'm really sorry. You have no idea. I guess when I realised they could see us, I started panicking and making bad judgements." Naruto hoped he sounded contrite enough. He desperately did. "If there's anything, _anything _I can do to fix this . . . "

But now the Third was looking sharp and alert. "You were seen?"

"Y- yeah. I'm really – "

"How? You weren't the one who bit him."

Shikamaru cut in. "Apparently the whole Hyuuga family is able to see through our camouflage. They do make surveillance technology; maybe they have air current-sensitive devices in their cameras, or even in contact lenses."

"And yet this one doesn't appear to have anything like that on his person."

"His bow . . . he used a bow. It had a sight, a lens to help aiming. Something could have been in there."

"No," said Naruto, piping up again suddenly. "The bow had nothing to do with it. Hinata could see me just fine, and she wasn't using any fancy objects. And same for her father, when he saw . . . "

He faltered milliseconds before saying Sasuke's name, because Sasuke had thrown him the dirtiest glare. Maybe he didn't want people to know he'd been seen too? Maybe appearing as anything less than perfect wasn't in the One's repertoire and Naruto was expected to keep taking the fall.

"Me," Naruto finished, the lie coming out awkwardly. "They all saw me. Like I said, I wasn't making the best decisions."

That was a bit annoying. He didn't enjoy taking the blame for others, but he supposed doing so would bring him one step closer to being square with Sasuke, which he definitely wanted. And when he saw Sasuke's face relax, he was glad to have done it.

"Hmm," said the Third. "Perhaps his Affirmation will shed some light on that."

"He'll get a chance to speak, then?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"Certainly. Everyone has the opportunity to share their value to our community. However, I think we already have a good idea of his usefulness, so it shouldn't take too long."

"So you do plan to accept him?" Shikamaru said. "Even though he isn't the one you initially wanted?"

For some reason, this made the Third chuckle, a deep, throaty sound full of humour. "It's true that we were after the middle child, the direct heir, but her value was never her position in the family. We've been tracking the Hyuugas' business moves as best we could over the last several years, and although they are experts at privacy, we've noticed an interesting pattern."

"A . . . pattern?"

"In public presentations, interviews, phone calls – rare though they have been – Hinata Hyuuga's name has always been present right underneath her father's. To the world, she is his successor, ready to assume leadership of the company as soon as he chooses to retire. However, with considerably more difficulty, we have obtained paper records – contracts, deals, patents, all sorts. And we've seen a rather different story: her name appears nowhere. And curiously, neither does her father's, nowadays. _Neji_ Hyuuga's, on the other hand, is on everything, alone. Ever since he became legally an adult, he has spearheaded every project. He may even have a greater understanding of the company's workings than his uncle. That would be extremely beneficial for us, and on top of all that, he is physically impressive. He is ideal."

Naruto dared to interject. "Wait, what? I'm lost. Weren't we talking about why _Hinata _would have been ideal?"

"Indeed she would have. As a hostage, to offer back to the family in exchange for Neji."

All sound was sucked out of the room, everybody digesting this news in cold silence. Naruto's jaw dropped in surprise, and even Sasuke managed to look taken aback, but neither of them had any words to express their reactions. The only one who did was Shikamaru.

"I did wonder," he murmured.

The Third nodded. "After last time, it was clear that going after him directly was a doomed venture, so we needed to explore other avenues. As the heir and predetermined figurehead of the company, the Hyuugas wouldn't abandon her; even Neji would agree, doing what was required for the family. We've established that much about his personality. He would come to us, Hinata would be returned – "

"Then she would die," interrupted Sasuke.

"_What?"_ Naruto gaped.

"She would have been bitten, so there'd be no way for her to return to her life. She would have to die . . . I assume in a way that looked like the family was responsible, so that Neji wouldn't want to side with them anymore."

Naruto looked at the Third, thunderstruck, hoping it wasn't true, but no denial came. No, this _couldn't_ be true. He had come so close to biting Hinata, signing her death warrant, murdering her for real. The thought was terrifying. He had almost become someone who killed people.

"So," Sasuke continued, frowning, though contemplatively rather than angrily, "Naruto effectively saved her life by getting the wrong person."

"I – I did," croaked Naruto, whose throat was suddenly dry. "Is that good?" He knew it was. He just needed to hear what others thought about it.

The Third gave him an unusually gentle smile. "But of course. I grant that it may be more difficult to persuade the young man to sympathise with our cause, but by no means impossible. He seems an intelligent one. Why waste life unnecessarily? You should be commended, Naruto, for being more efficient than we could have predicted. Gaara was not wrong about you."

Sasuke looked like someone had put something sour in his mouth, but Naruto was feeling too uplifted to worry about that for the moment. He hadn't royally screwed up everything! People didn't hate him! In fact, he'd been _commended _for his actions, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been commended for something. And best of all, Hinata was safe; thanks to him, no one would go after her again. It felt good, good to know that he had succeeded on his mission after all and managed to save a life in the process, even if that had been the opposite of his objective.

And he'd been praised for it. There was nothing evil about that.

A cord was struck within him then. There _was _nothing evil about that. Hinata was supposed to die, which was chilling, but not out of personal spite or malice against humanity, just because they couldn't think of any other way. Then Naruto had found another way, albeit accidentally, and everyone thought that was good.

Was there the slightest possibility that he had been pigeon-holing the other vampires as cruel murderers when in reality things weren't so black and white?

The Third invited them to watch Neji's A.D., but they all shook their heads no. Shikamaru seemed genuinely uninterested, and Naruto didn't want to watch on the extremely unlikely off-chance they decided to kill Neji anyway. Sasuke was hesitant in his decision, but declined because, "We already know how it's going to turn out, so there's no point."

Having been awake for a solid twenty-four hours, the three of them left to get some sleep. Up until the point where Shikamaru split up with them, Sasuke had kept to himself, but when they were alone Naruto tried to engage him.

"Hey, Sasuke. I'm sorry. For . . . not getting into more trouble over what happened. I know you were expecting me to get slaughtered back there, and I figured I owed it to you. It isn't my fault it didn't happen, is it? Are we okay?"

Sasuke looked like he was contemplating saying an emphatic no, but he restrained himself. "You have a weird idea of what constitutes 'okay'."

Naruto grinned to himself. He knew that was a veiled 'yes', but he shouldn't make too much of it. For whatever reason – probably just his natural charms – Sasuke was warming to him, he knew, and he wasn't going to push it too hard. "I also feel I should say something else: I think, I _think_, I'm starting to get it. That this whole society isn't just planning world domination and being kings of the underworld. You don't want to kill every human that moves."

"I've been telling you that from the beginning," Sasuke said irritably. "Everyone has."

"Yeah, well, now I'm starting to get it. And maybe at some point I'll be able to get on board with all the stuff I'm supposed to do with you guys. I mean, I'm glad about being disobedient last night, but how often is it going to be that complicated?"

They reached their sleeping quarters, but only Naruto walked in, feeling a wave of fatigue as the last of his adrenaline left his system.

"Not often," answered Sasuke. "And I will say that it's about time you think this way. But at the same time, looking at the way you act, you won't ever be able to get on board with everything. Sooner or later, you'll have to do things you don't want. You'll have to kill someone. It _will _become about picking sides, and you'll have to pick quickly. I don't believe you're capable of that."

Naruto sighed. "Give me an honest answer here. Am I really the only person who's become a vampire and had a problem with murder?"

"Honest answer? As far as I know, you're the only one who hadn't murdered anyone as a human."

Naruto's chest went cold. "What does that mean?"

Before he could do or say anything else in response to this tidbit of information, Sasuke said offhandedly, "I'm going to Tsunade. Make her give me something for this leg," and he was gone. Surprisingly fast for someone with such an extreme injury, but that was Sasuke, brilliant at everything. Brilliant speed, brilliant agility, and presumably brilliant killing.

With another sigh, Naruto sat and leaned against a wall wearily. He was tired. Sasuke's words rolled around in his head for a while before fading into the background, still not fully processed. Of all the things he had to think about, all these new facts from the day to comprehend, he didn't know why the last thing sticking in his mind before he dozed off was that image of Sasuke biting Neji on the neck. He didn't want it there, but it was. Everything else would need to wait until he woke up.

* * *

This Sasuke guy was nowhere.

That was the conclusion Sakura had come to after spending all of her holiday leave sitting hunched over her computer at home, trying desperately to find a trace of Naruto. Two years he had been gone, and that was two years too many. Whatever that handsome guy had said, there was no legitimate reason for a twenty-year-old to suddenly drop everything and vanish.

Unfortunately, all she knew about said handsome guy was his first name, if it really was his name, and it wasn't proving helpful at all.

Sakura's first idea had been to check Facebook, Twitter, and all the online phonebooks she could find. Looking up everyone called Sasuke had not only taken an entire month's worth of weekends, but it had been a complete waste of time. The one she wanted wasn't there. That was pretty shifty in itself, and it gave her the sudden suspicion that maybe Naruto had become involved in some kind of reclusive cult. So she spent her next few free hours outside her hospital looking up any local cults, but none looked promising, and Sasuke's face didn't appear in any of the reports.

She tried a million more things, but still came up with nothing. She even tried to sketch him from memory, scan it and use it in an image search, but she wasn't very good at drawing, so that attempt turned out more embarrassing than anything else.

But she was going to find Naruto if it killed her. The police were trying to help, but they were also at a total loss, and they weren't convinced that looking for this Sasuke was going to do any good.

Putting her head in her hands, Sakura groaned at the hopelessness of it all. The only idea she had left was to Google the name and examine every last link. Everyone was on the Internet somewhere, right?

She had no idea anymore.

With trepidation, she typed 'Sasuke' into her search engine, dreading the enormity of the task.

Over fifty million results. Huzzah.

"I hate you sometimes, Naruto," she whispered to the screen. "But I'm going to find you even if it kills me."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: **Um... so, I just read the latest manga (number 614, was it?) ... I assume at least some people here have read it, but of course I won't do spoilers. But... can somebody please leave me a non-spoilery, kind note in their review so that I feel better? I need it so much. I don't know if people can really understand the extent of the emotion I feel right now. I'm sorry if it seems dramatic, but I'm very attached to fiction. That's me. And I'm sure you wouldn't love the series - or ANY series - if it weren't you as well, even just a little bit. XD

It was really difficult to write the end of this chapter right after reading that manga. I'm sorry if my editing has taken a sudden turn for the worse, too.

* * *

**Caprice**

"Here's to Naruto!"

A dozen voices cheered raucously, although one stood out above the others: "Kiba, we already toasted to Naruto."

"Oh." Inuzuka blinked in surprise. He took a long look at the glass in his hand as though he was confused by it. "Well, who cares? Toast him again!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes as everyone cheered again. There was nothing in their glasses besides water, as always, but after all the decades and centuries they had gotten pretty good at pretending it was something more. He himself found it pointless, never having been a drinker as far as he could remember, but the others seemed almost dependent on it at times.

This was true for none more so than Naruto; Naruto, for whom everyone he knew had taken time to come to the bar and praise after his 'success' with the Hyuugas. Neji had been quickly accepted and rushed to Inuzuka's operating theatre, where he was now recovering. Even though it was Sasuke who had bitten him, which would normally mean being in charge of him, it was Temari and Kankuro together who were going to be his mentors, probably because they were in security and he was a surveillance expert. There was still no word on how they were going to ensure his allegiance to them. Still, everyone saw this as a triumph, and word had spread that it was all because of Naruto. Everyone he'd ever befriended had pulled him away from his training for a celebration, and he was more than happy to oblige.

"To me!" he roared, lifting his arm with so much vigour that water from his glass went everywhere, including on Sasuke.

"Watch it."

Naruto just laughed. "Whoops! Ah, whatever, you can handle being wet." He leaned his body over so that he and Sasuke were shoulder-to-shoulder, which for some reason made people cheer for a third time before going off to their own chatter.

"You're not drunk," Sasuke informed Naruto. "Why do you feel the need to act like it?"

"I dunno, because it's fun! And being here, sitting in a bar, it still _feels _like being drunk, and that's awesome! Maybe being drunk is actually all about the atmosphere and nothing to do with alcohol at all?"

"Right." In other words, people needed an excuse to act like idiots and enjoy it. That wasn't something Sasuke really cared to try.

Naruto flashed him a grin, gave him an unappreciated slap on the back, and jumped up to mingle with Tenten and Lee. Sasuke watched him for a while, seeing how comfortable he was even around someone whose English bordered on Gibberish, and couldn't help wondering how he did it. There were people here whom Sasuke had never endeavoured to meet but who, in barely a year, were treating Naruto like their oldest friend. It was bizarre. Sasuke wasn't jealous – he still had no desire to get closer to anyone – but he was intrigued.

"Strange to see someone else succeed?"

He glanced left to see Kankuro by his side, observing him with faint amusement. "No," he responded. "Strange that he's lasted this long."

"Eh, what can you do? He's likeable. You of all people should know that." Kankuro winked.

Sasuke, bemused, looked at him inquiringly without saying anything. Around them, girls had started shrieking gleefully as Naruto and Inuzuka showered them with water. Even though none of them could have been younger than two hundred, they seemed happy enough to be reduced to a gaggle of teenagers.

"So, what's the story there? Word is that he's gay, but I don't think _they _know that. Or maybe they're in denial. But what's your deal?"

A defensive wall seemed to cloud itself around Sasuke, disconnecting him from everything else. Stilted, he said, "You're asking me if I'm gay as well."

No one asked him questions like that. Inuzuka might have thrown him a cheap, joking insult every now and again, but no one ever tried to engage him so personally. Except for Naruto himself, of course; Naruto had asked the very same thing only days ago, and had been throwing other queries at him constantly too, mostly about his family. But apparently it was spreading, and even people like Kankuro thought it was appropriate to ask.

"Hey, somebody has to find out." Kankuro shrugged, eyes still glinting. "Put a stop to the rumours."

"There are rumours?"

"About you and Naruto? Oh, yeah. Heaps. You think these people have anything better to do with their time? You should put it all to rest."

In contrast to Kankuro's grin, Sasuke's mouth was steadily curving into a frown. He didn't like that there was gossip about him. He should have been above gossip. Naruto would have loudly berated him for saying as much, but it was true. He should have been held at a higher standard than the rest of them, but he was being treated essentially as an equal, and he did not welcome that.

"What gave people that idea?" he asked stiffly.

"More like what _didn't _give people the idea! The bonehead said you two were all over each other on the Hyuuga mission."

'The bonehead', Sasuke had learned recently, was Kankuro's pet name for Shikamaru, and presumably originated around the time Temari started seeing him.

"That's a complete lie," Sasuke said.

"Uh huh. Kiba spilled that Naruto never shuts up about you."

"He never shuts up at all."

"And let's not forget your unusual living situation."

"That was his decision, not mine."

Kankuro was shaking his head. "Whatever, man. You're goddamn evasive, but there's no point running from the obvious. Even if you don't have a thing for him, he's damned sure got a thing for you." Sasuke was about to interject, but not giving him any opening, Kankuro briskly continued. "But hey, it ain't my life. I don't care how badly you... how... badly... you..."

His voice stopped working for some reason. Sasuke noticed the way the other's eyes had shifted from him to something a bit past him, so irritably, he turned around to look. He noticed that most other patrons of the bar were doing the same, and also heard all the exuberant voices die down. He saw the reason for the sudden hush immediately: someone new was standing at the cave entrance, someone they all recognised but never in a million years expected to see here.

From the opposite side of the table, it was Temari who spoke first. "G– Gaara?" she stammered out in shock.

And so it was. There was no mistaking it: Gaara, the same Gaara that no one had ever known to leave his arena, was only a short distance from all the people he'd had the job of injuring over the last seven centuries. He stared back boldly as everyone gawked at him, not coming any closer, not looking like he was going to join in, but nor like he was going to leave. To Sasuke, he looked surprisingly small against this completely knew background, his short stature never more evident than it was now.

Even Naruto had been struck sober. His dark blue eyes were wide and taken aback, and even he seemed lost for words. But he recovered all too quickly, his face suddenly splitting into a broad smile.

"Gaara! You're finally taking up my offer of a drink!"

All eyes shifted between him and Gaara like they were witnessing an intense tennis match. They had practically been conditioned to fear Gaara, and Sasuke could see that some of them were fighting the urge to run. It was like a caged animal had been let out into the wild for the first time; it might lick them or maul them and nobody knew which. Even Gaara's two siblings were looking at Naruto like he was crazy.

Naruto obviously didn't care. He rose up from his seat and took gigantic steps over towards Gaara, bringing them close enough to touch. Without the least bit of hesitation, he lifted his hand and placed it on Gaara's shoulder.

The silence was only permeated by someone – Ino, it seemed – taking a sharp breath in. Even Sasuke was feeling more than a little alarmed now; Gaara could take that hand clean off. It was a terrible accident waiting to happen. He thought he should warn Naruto, but didn't want his voice to startle Gaara into movement.

Nothing happened. Gaara didn't move. He just stared at Naruto with his unreadable expression.

Finally, Naruto faced the onlookers, still beaming from ear to ear, and hand still on Gaara's shoulder. "Hey, is this a party celebrating me or not? Talk! Drink! Be normal! And for those of you who don't know him, this is my very good friend Gaara!"

That was enough to get some laughs – nervous laughs, true, but it was the icebreaker they needed to return to a slightly more civilised version of how they'd been acting before. Nobody was comfortable enough to combat the desire to watch Gaara warily, but when Naruto managed to steer him to a seat without being murdered, they became more assured of their own safety. Conversations sprang back up, and eventually the party atmosphere returned.

Kankuro, meanwhile, was still completely dumbstruck. "Okay, I see your point. It _is _strange that he's managed to survive this long."

Their prior discussion all but forgotten, Sasuke didn't respond. He, too, was in disbelief. He couldn't tear his eyes off Naruto, who was now deeply involved in a one-sided talk with Gaara. This really was insane. How, _how, _was it possible for one boy – for Naruto was essentially a boy, blonde and wide-eyed and nothing like the rest of the vampires – to stir some kind of curiosity inside a lonely, vicious murderer? What was the compulsion people had to be nice to him when they would never extent the same courtesy to anyone else?

For that matter, why in hell did he introduce Gaara as a 'very good friend'? Sasuke knew for a fact that the two of them had interacted no more than six times, yet apparently that was tantamount to _very good friendship. _Sasuke didn't care who Naruto's friends were, but it did annoy him that _he _had never attained that title after a year of being around constantly; he'd thrown around the word 'friend' on occasion, but never with comparative qualifiers. It seemed unjust.

"And then _bam! _I punched through the floor and landed right on him!" Naruto was ecstatically recounting events while Gaara may or may not have been listening. "They should make a movie of it, it was so awesome!"

Gaara blinked and, to Sasuke's unending surprise, opened his mouth to speak. He was barely audible, but Sasuke was paying close attention. "Good. You did as you were supposed to do."

Naruto looked simultaneously delight that Gaara had said something and confused about the words themselves. "Uh, I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of what I did. No offense. I was supposed to get Hinata."

"No. I had been told that the real victim was intended to be Neji Hyuuga and asked to nominate an appropriate hunter for the hostage. I selected you."

"Right, the Third mentioned that. Er . . . why, exactly?"

"The short-term target was a defenceless girl, whereas the long-term target was an intelligent, aggressive male. I see your combat. I know when you attack and I know whom you will attack. You do not attack unprovoked, and of the Hyuugas, the one most likely to cause provocation was the one you captured."

A gap in the conversation followed as Naruto processed this. Sasuke couldn't help but be more annoyed: that was it? The only reason Naruto had been offered the mission was because he was too gentlemanly to attack a girl who couldn't fight back? That wasn't an asset!

It was enough to sate Naruto, though. He was eager to take over again when Gaara fell silent, as if he'd realised he'd said so much and was uncomfortable with it. Nothing was more bizarre than seeing him – dare it be said – vulnerable.

Sasuke forced himself to tear his eyes off Naruto and Gaara. He hunched forward over the table and attempted to lose his thoughts in the noise.

* * *

It was impossible not to notice the change in the air. Everyone was abuzz with gossip about the three important people of the hour, Neji, Naruto and Gaara, and Sasuke had no choice but to listen because he kept finding himself alone in a crowd. Naruto wasn't willing to take Gaara's change for granted, so he was racing down to the arena at every opportunity to make sure they were definitely still friends, causing Sasuke to go to the wayside. They still went to the bar on occasion, but even that had turned into a game of 'who can actually approach Gaara and say something to him' among others; Sasuke received no attention there. He was getting all of the disadvantages of Naruto's friendship and none of the benefits.

Neji had woken up the day after his operation, and according to Inuzuka's reporting, he was an infuriating patient. Similar words were used by Temari and Kankuro when describing his progress: apparently he wavered back and forth between belief and utter scepticism when it came to accepting that he was a vampire. The few people who had met him returned laughing at the prospect of Kankuro sending him to the arena just to shut up him.

"It's hilarious," Tenten had said, giggling over a drink one night. "One minute he's all, 'This makes so much sense I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier,' and the next he's asking what compounds are the primary components of Monster Blood and how they could possibly have been discovered thousands of years ago. He's completely confused but doesn't want to admit it. I like him!"

It was by accident that Sasuke happened to meet Neji again, over a week since his acceptance. Sasuke was returning from some private training in an isolated passage he'd found after Naruto spent all his time turning Gaara's arena into another spot for conversation. He made his way to Tsunade's place as he had inadvertently split the stitches she had put in his wounded leg, and he timed it just so that he entered right when Neji was leaving.

Neji stopped, recognition in his eyes. "You."

It wasn't a question, so Sasuke didn't answer.

"I've been hoping to run into you at some point," Neji continued. "I've heard a lot about you since the incident at my manor and I have some questions for you."

Sasuke nearly scoffed at his use of the word 'manor', but didn't stoop to that. He wasn't interested in being asked the existential questions of a man who had just died, nor in teaching him how to be a vampire. If having Naruto around taught Sasuke anything, it was that being a mentor was barely worth doing once, let alone twice.

"I can't say I'm sorry for shooting you, because I'm not. That said, I didn't cause any lasting damage, did I?"

Sasuke scowled. "We'll see."

Neji's eyes bore into him seriously. Even with his temporary colour vision, there was no normal colour to ascribe to them; Sasuke could only see them as eerily pale. In spite of himself, he wanted to know how the Hyuugas were able to see through his invisibility.

"Well, I hope I didn't. I understand you're doing something important for this . . . community."

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest like he was issuing a challenge. "A question for a question, Hyuuga. Why could your family see me?"

Neji raised an eyebrow, but complied. "The Council of Elders asked me the same thing. I had no idea anyone aside from you was _supposed _to be invisible. Now, though, I think I understand, at least insofar as your doctors will explain the science to me, which isn't much."

"Enlighten me."

"It isn't invisibility, what you can do. That still seems logically impossible. It's just very, very intricate camouflage. The vampire blood doesn't have the colourative effect of regular blood, so your skin stays pale – admittedly, far more pale than I would have ever believed possible, but there it is. Now, it's only humans that can't see you ordinarily; apart from right at the beginning, other vampires have no trouble. Assuming the new blood doesn't change the structure of the eye, just the strength . . ." Neji smiled slightly. "Very simply, my family must have spectacularly good eyes, good enough to see through your camouflage. Nothing more."

Well, that was a terrible explanation. Sasuke wasn't satisfied by that at all. Was he really supposed to believe that the whole Hyuuga family was just naturally gifted, that there was no trick or technology behind it?

"I see," he said grudgingly.

"Which leads nicely into my next question, Uchiha."

So Neji knew his name. That most likely meant nothing, just that somebody had mentioned it to him in passing. Loads of people knew his full name.

"How in the hell does the same camouflage apply to your clothes?"

Surprised, Sasuke did the smallest of double-takes. He wasn't sure he'd heard correctly, especially since Neji's expression was deadly earnest. It seemed such a ludicrous question. "I'm not a tailor."

"So you don't know?"

He had certainly never asked the question himself before. Naruto had once complained about feeling dirty, but that was the closest they had ever come to contemplating their clothing. Sasuke's clothes were usually the same ones he had died in, although taking an arrow to the thigh meant his pants had needed to be replaced. They didn't change outfits much at all; Sasuke knew he barely sweated, and suspected he didn't even have a scent anymore, so there was no need to wash them on a regular basis. But even knowing all that, it was true that the clothes apparently became invisible too, and that hardly seemed to make sense at all.

"No," Sasuke answered.

"Hmm." Neji sounded disapproving and equally unsatisfied with the way these questions were going. "Someone must know. I suspect these aren't really the clothes I was wearing at my home, and are just designed to look like them, but I can't get any answers from anyone. I suppose it's your question, then."

Sasuke didn't hesitate to ask his next one. "Who told you my name?"

"Nobody. I recognised you myself. When you live my life, you make a point of knowing about local families of assassins – even the ones long since dead."

So he knew.

A strange tightness gripped Sasuke's chest as he waited to see what Neji was going to do with this information. As far as he was aware, the only ones who knew anything about his past were the Elders; he had kept it as close-knit as possible. There was a number of skeletons in his ancestral closet that he didn't want revealed, and knowing one could release the others.

Neji was watching him carefully, studying him, noting his reaction. Sasuke tried not to give anything away. "Do others know this?"

Sasuke remained silent.

"You weren't a vampire back then, were you?" Neji asked. "You couldn't have been, if you made it into some of the history books. It really wasn't that difficult to find you, either. I assume the Council knows, and that's why they chose you to become a vampire in the first place, which explains your mysterious death. But I'm fairly sure I read that your whole family died at the same time – why don't I see any other Uchihas down here?"

Sasuke felt a flash of anger and gritted out, "None of your business."

But Neji knew he had found a sore point and he was going to press it. "You might as well talk to me; I already know all of it anyway. Fugaku was your father, born in 1639. Mikoto was your mother, five years younger. Itachi was your brother, five years older than you."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"You just assassinated _me, _didn't you? I think I'm well within my rights to ask a few personal questions."

"Or what, you'll shoot me again? I'm not afraid of you."

"And I'm not afraid of you, which I don't think is something you're used to," Neji replied coldly. "I'm not trying to make an enemy out of you, you know. I just want answers so I know what to think."

"Well, you don't need answers about me," Sasuke flared. Ignoring the reason he'd come here in the first place, he turned to storm off in the opposite direction, even though Neji should have been travelling the same way. However, for whatever reason, Neji didn't follow; maybe it was his way of apologising, although Sasuke doubted it.

"All right, I'm sorry for that. I'll leave you alone. Being the One's teacher must be a thankless job."

Sasuke halted on the spot. He wasn't sure he had heard that correctly. Barely opening his lips, he hissed out the words, "What did you say?"

"Have I touched another nerve?" Neji called, still at the far end of the tunnel. "I was just acknowledging that it must be frustrating to be in charge of teaching basic skills to a future leader who has no idea what he's doing yet. I should understand that better than anyone, being an indirect heir to a family company. I thought you might –"

But whatever Neji thought, it didn't get a chance to be said. At a speed that even vampire vision would struggle to follow, Sasuke had thundered back across the tunnel and pinned Neji against a wall. Still slightly weaker, Neji couldn't struggle his way free.

"Why would you say that?" Sasuke snarled.

"I told you! I'm trying to throw you a bit of understanding, not that _that _will ever happen again. What's wrong with you?"

"You think Naruto is the One? _Naruto? _The Naruto whose idea of capturing a person is to _fall _on them? You must be joking!"

"Look, I'm just repeating what I've heard."

"Who said it?" He was shaking, angrier about this than even he expected to be, but that didn't mean it wasn't justified. Someone was trying to slight him, to pass off his well-earned reputation to Naruto! It was an insult; it was practically a crime!

Neji's own ire was marred by bewilderment, obviously realising this was no joke or cheap insult that he had delivered. "I don't know, people. And they didn't tell me – I just happened to overhear. No one sounded like they were the source of the information, though, so it was probably just idle gossip."

Gossip. Supposedly such an innocent, inane thing, doing nobody any particular harm or good, yet it was getting the better of Sasuke Uchiha. When it was simply a childish whisper of who was infatuated with whom, it didn't matter. Now, it was time to put an end to it before it ruined things irreparably. Releasing Neji and reverting to pretending he was invisible, Sasuke marched off with only one goal in mind: get to Naruto.

For who else could have started such a rumour? Who else could have been so dim-witted, so hopelessly naïve, to believe he would get away with it? Everyone else may have been treating Sasuke with more warmth lately, but they still respected him, and hopefully still feared him, too. None of them would dare. Oh, but Naruto would. He'd been screwing Sasuke over since his first day.

Naruto wasn't at the arena. There was only a disgruntled Gaara, who mumbled something about too many people attempting to talk to him today, so Sasuke left him to recover.

It was too early for the bar, so the one place left where Sasuke knew Naruto frittered away the time was Kiba's operating theatre. Sure enough, the two familiar voices were distinct from quite far away as he approached. Unusually, it sounded as if they were arguing, something Sasuke hadn't witnessed between them before. He walked up to the theatre's thick, glass divider and peered through.

A far cry from his buoyant mood of the rest of the week, Naruto was looking distressed and uncomfortable. Inuzuka looked about the same, although he was shaking his head firmly, and Sasuke instantly got the impression that Naruto was up to something he wasn't supposed to be, and Inuzuka was putting his foot down. It would have been remarkable for Naruto to get away with being up to something under Sasuke's watchful eye, but watching Naruto had been so difficult lately that anything was possible.

Neither of them had noticed Sasuke's arrival, so they continued their argument uninhibited. Inuzuka was raising his hands, palms splayed apologetically. "I'd love to, you _know _I'd love to, but it's a terrible idea. There's absolutely no way you can get away with it, and trust me, I can think of a lot of ways to get away with bad ideas."

"I don't have to get away with it," replied Naruto pleadingly. "They can punish me all they want afterwards."

"What about me, then? Everyone would know I was involved, and I don't want to face those kinds of consequences. Did you think of that?"

Clearly Naruto hadn't, because he was rendered momentarily speechless. "Oh – okay – look, I'll take the fall. I'll tell them I made you give it to me, or I stole it myself, or –"

"They're not going to believe you."

"_Please."_

Inuzuka sighed heavily. "I . . . can't. Come on, Naruto, you can't seriously expect me to risk my position so you can get a little bit more closure. I may have been dealing blood for, what, a thousand years, but if any guards tell the Elders I've been abusing it, they'll kick me out and replace me with someone way less qualified. It'll be a mess."

"But you break the rules all the time! You're always talking about how you're on the surface so much you basically live a double life!"

"And Temari already gives me a rough time about that, but at least I have the excuse that I need animal blood and it runs out quicker than human blood. What excuse are you going to give her? And if she doesn't rat us out, I'd bet anything their new rookie will."

"No way. Neji's cool, he likes me – I think – and there's always Kankuro."

"Who follows the rules more than you'd think."

"Come on!" Naruto was distinctly yelling now. "Are you my friend or not? Can't you just accept this is something I have to do? If I don't see her I'm going to go crazy!"

Sasuke could restrain himself no longer: he let out an exasperated growl that the others would definitely hear, but he didn't care. He couldn't believe that Naruto was talking about Sakura _again_, and worse, attempting to plot to steal some blood and use it to visit her. Visiting someone from your own past was so against the rules that even Sasuke had no words for it. Was he planning on telling her he was a vampire as well? He was insane. He must have been. What Sasuke had done last year was nothing compared to Naruto trying the same thing.

At Sasuke's noise, Inuzuka snapped his gaze onto the window and met the other's glare. Naruto looked like a deer in the headlights, frozen with the realisation that he had been caught, and unsure what was going to happen next.

Inuzuka spoke first. "Well, I guess this means my part is done. Naruto, I can tell by looking at you that you're practically starved, so I can't exactly deny you blood. I'll get some for you."

"W- what? You will?"

"But since I _am _your friend, I've got to tell you to do the smart thing and give up on this Sakura business. I get it, you miss her, she sounds great, and if I ever got the chance I'd totally chat her up –"

"Hey!"

"All right, all right, no kidding around. But you won't be doing anybody any favours by doing this. If you won't listen to me, you'll sure as hell listen to him." He dipped his head towards Sasuke, then walked around the divider and passed him on his way out. Out of Naruto's earshot, he said very quietly, "Sasuke, I'm begging you, don't let him out of your sight after he drinks blood. Do whatever you want, just get his mind as far away from Sakura as possible."

Sasuke gave a small nod. He was going to give Naruto a piece of his mind.

When Inuzuka was out of sight, he left behind an awkward silence, Naruto looking guilty and defensive as he waited for Sasuke to judge him. "So . . . was it true what you said about everyone here having killed someone when they were human? Because I've been thinking about it, and I don't think you could've been counting Kiba in that, could you?"

"Don't change the subject," Sasuke said shortly.

"Why not? I already know what you're going to say."

"That doesn't mean you don't need to hear it. Why do you keep shooting yourself in the foot? You like things, you hate things, you think we're evil, you don't think we're evil . . ."

"Well, maybe if I got closure with Sakura I'd be more consistent! Did you ever think of that?"

Sasuke bit back his reflexive response: no, he hadn't thought of that, because it wasn't true. Even if it was frustrating, even if it was something he disagreed with vehemently, Sasuke was slowly beginning to understand the inner workings of Naruto's mind, and while Sakura may have been of utmost importance to him, she definitely wasn't the real cause of his issues.

Naruto's capricious actions had nothing to do with her at all; they were a result of his black and white views on morality that kept getting twisted and torn by everything around him. In a way, his talking about everyone's murder record wasn't a change of subject at all. No other vampire had had his problems because their human lives had already derailed their morality from the traditional. They had all proven long ago that they were capable of killing, that they were proficient at it, that even though they were good people – most of them – they knew that some out there just had to die. Naruto had done none of that. He was a pure, blank canvas that had somehow made it to the bottom of the world's blackest pit without getting stained.

He thought their plans were evil, but he made friends. That confused him. Then he knew that they committed murder, but discovered that they preferred not to, and his confusion only doubled. He went from hearing Sasuke tell him that they not only were vicious killers now, but that they always had been, to receiving a mountain of praise for refusing to become the same. Of _course _he wasn't going to lie back and accept his fate. Whenever he'd started to accept something, something else would blow his beliefs out of the water again.

Of course he was going to be a thorn in Sasuke's side, if he didn't yet grasp anything properly. He probably didn't even realise this himself.

But none of it mattered; whatever Naruto was doing here was of no consequence at all. Sasuke shoved everything else aside for the most important matter of them all. "Have you been talking to Neji Hyuuga?" he demanded.

Naruto frowned. "Now you're the one changing the subject."

"This is extremely relevant, actually. Have you?"

"I guess. A little."

"What did you tell him about yourself?"

Naruto looked thoroughly puzzled, but Sasuke didn't buy it. He must have known what he'd done. Maybe this whole Sakura thing was just a ploy to cover up his greater betrayal. "Uh, everything?" he said in a questioning tone. "I tend to talk about myself a lot, y'know. Why, did I accidentally let slip that I'm anti-death? Was I not supposed to do that?"

"You know what you let slip!" Sasuke exploded.

"I really don't."

Sick of the games, Sasuke grabbed Naruto by the collar the same as he'd done to Neji, only minus the wall against which to press him. He counteracted this by squeezing harder. "Why are you going around saying you're the One?"

"_Huh?" _Naruto goggled, Sasuke's grip not yet tight enough to be choking him. "I have not! Who has? Why would anyone say that?"

"Just admit it, Naruto. You were enjoying your spotlight, everyone finding you so interesting . . ."

"No! I haven't been trying to steal your stupid spotlight!"

Rather unlike Neji, Naruto squirmed and thrashed his way out of Sasuke's hands. He was angry now. "Haven't I made it clear that I wouldn't trade places with you if you paid me a billion dollars? Your job is to lead a fucking _army_, and I think it's the sickest idea in the world! I can't believe we've known each other for this long and you still don't get it!"

Sasuke eyed him suspiciously. "Last week you said you were starting to come around to our way of thinking."

"No, I said I finally got that you weren't doing it just to be evil. Then you reminded me that I'll never be completely on board. When that war happens, I'm going to be nowhere near it."

They were such familiar words. Naruto had been preaching them for as long as he'd been here, but in his rage Sasuke had forgotten. He had been focusing so hard on how the rumour was designed to spite him that he'd forgotten that Naruto wouldn't be impressed by it either. He'd never even pretended to want to be the One.

But if Naruto didn't start the rumour . . . that meant that somebody else did. Maybe somebody who believed it.

"All right," said Sasuke. He wasn't going to apologise.

"Okay," Naruto agreed, calming down. "Maybe Kiba was the one who said that. Apparently he likes making bad jokes at the wrong time – saying he'd chat up Sakura, come on –"

He mumbled and fumed for a while as Sasuke tried to let go of his anger. It was difficult; a lot had built up over the week. He allowed himself to admit that perhaps after feeling slightly abandoned, he'd been especially quick to jump down Naruto's throat today.

"You can't go after her, you know," he said sternly.

"Oh, shut up. You're not changing my mind about this."

Sasuke didn't appreciate being told to shut up. He hadn't softened that much. "It shouldn't be a matter of changing your mind. You should know that there are things you're not allowed to do."

"Like you're one to talk! You break the rules all the time, going up to the real world at every chance you get."

"I haven't done that in a long time."

"Yeah, well, leopards don't change their spots," Naruto muttered. All of a sudden, his face lit up, like he'd had the best idea of his life. "Sasuke, you're basically my best friend down here, right?"

Sasuke had a sneaking suspicion he knew what Naruto was edging towards. "You really have no understanding whatsoever of when to _not _ask for a favour. This is exactly like when you asked me to bite Neji for you."

"Come on, dude, please do this for me. Go up and find Sakura and tell her – I don't know, tell her something. I'll owe you times a million. I'll do anything you want. I'll never go up there again, I'll tell everyone that I'm definitely not the One and that whoever thinks so is an idiot, I'll – I'll massage your feet if that's what you want! Just give her a message from me!"

"There's no point."

"What d'you mean, there's no point? There's a lot of point!"

"No, there really isn't." Sasuke paused for an intake of breath as he decided that one year was long enough to keep this particular secret from Naruto. "There isn't because I already spoke to her once. She knows you're fine."

"You – you what?"

Of course, Inuzuka took exactly that moment to return, clutching a small bag made of thin, flexible plastic, containing a potent amount of blood. Naruto was gaping soundlessly at Sasuke, completely shocked, but after a minute his eyes became irresistibly drawn to the blood, distracting him hopelessly. He looked from it to Sasuke to Inuzuka without words. Inuzuka had been right to comment that Naruto was starving: he was pale, gaunt and honestly ghoulish, and the blood was putting him almost into a trance. Sasuke couldn't remember what sort of skin tone Naruto had had when he first arrived, but it couldn't have been very pale at all. It didn't suit him.

"Here." Inuzuka grimaced, handing the bag to Naruto. "This should keep you going for a month or two – I figured I'd start you off light. I'll leave you to it. The ball's in your court." He went further into his operating theatre and shut Naruto and Sasuke out.

"Sasuke," Naruto said in a low voice, the least humorous that Sasuke had ever heard it. "Did you . . . really see Sakura?"

"Yes."

He expected questions, accusations of lies, shouting about why he hadn't mentioned it earlier, but none of those came. Naruto looked like he didn't know what to think, so he nodded numbly and seemed to stop thinking altogether. He held the bag of blood cautiously like he was worried it might burst.

"Go on, then," Sasuke said indifferently. "Surely this is what you want. Blood but no death."

"I – I guess," Naruto answered unconvincingly, though his voice was back to normal.

"Then what's the problem now?"

"It's going to sound dumb."

"Tell me."

"I . . . I just wonder whose blood it is. If it belongs to someone here, or someone who did die."

Sasuke frowned. "Stop wondering and drink it. It could be anyone's. It could be your own, for all you know. Would that be of any comfort? Though it's unlikely: I didn't leave you with much to begin with."

"Oh, thanks." Naruto managed to roll his eyes, and it actually did seem to help him pick up his determination to drink the blood. He tore the bag open at the corner with his teeth, then pinched his nose with the fingers on his left hand and poured the bag's contents into his mouth with his right. He got it all down in two large swallows, with an expression that said he wanted to be sick.

When he was finished, he scrunched up his face in an effort to keep it from coming back up again. It wasn't an unusual reaction for those with sensitive stomachs. However, while he stood there nauseously, Sasuke was able to witness the profoundly interesting experience of him regaining his life, a process Sasuke had undergone many times but never watched in another. Naruto swayed on the spot as if in a dizzy spell, his eyes distant and blinking more often than was normal. He inhaled deeply, and it seemed to breathe colour back into him: the awful paleness was gone, replaced by a deep, healthy tan, like he'd never been out of the sun in his life. His pupils diminished slightly, leaving his irises more visible and sparkling like light seawater.

And all in an instant, for the first time since the brief time at the end of Naruto's A.D., he and Sasuke were seeing each other in full colour.

"Woah," Naruto said. He looked awed; Sasuke couldn't tell if it was about him or about colour in general. Truth be told, he also felt rather inarticulate at the moment.

"I . . . would say it's an improvement," he eventually decided on saying.

"Y- yeah. I think so."

Their lack of words was bordering on uncomfortable, but Sasuke couldn't figure out why that should be. They had been together without talking more times than he could count and it was never the source of any issue, though that was usually by his own decision instead of the result of some mutual muteness. There just seemed to be something strange about the way they stood across from each other, looking and feeling the most human they had in a long time. Along with that, Naruto's facial expression was the very definition of discomfort: several emotions were readable at once, leaving it a confused mess that suggested he had something firmly on his mind but wasn't sure it was a good idea.

That possibility gave Sasuke something on which to focus instead of the silence itself. Whatever was going on in Naruto's head, he wanted to see him act on it. Maybe he had some burning desire to run around staring at everyone with his colour vision; that might be an interesting spectacle.

"Are you going to do it?" Sasuke inquired. "What you're deciding whether or not to do."

Naruto looked alarmed. "How do you know I'm deciding something?"

"You aren't exactly an expert at concealing things."

"But you can't read my mind _exactly_, right? You – you don't know what I was thinking."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "I might." He was bluffing, of course, but Naruto wasn't difficult to fool. If he believed Sasuke was somehow omniscient, so be it.

"Nah, you don't," Naruto said, now with a little amusement. "If you did, you – well – you'd have your disapproving face on."

This was intriguing. A spark of recollection lit in Sasuke's mind, but from where or when, he couldn't remember. But whatever it was, it stirred up other memories of conversations from recent times that he thought he'd swept from his subconscious:

"_I'm gay. Very, very gay." _

Naruto had said that last week, hadn't he? Also, _"If you ever want to figure it all out, I'm happy to help."_

And, _"I'm not hitting on you. Unless you're interested."_

Then the first memory he'd tried to pinpoint became clearer: when Kankuro had said Naruto was clearly interested in pursuing something. _"Word is that he's gay . . . what's your deal?"_ Sasuke had been so preoccupied with Gaara's arrival at the bar that he forgot everything else about that night.

Looking into Naruto's conflicted eyes, it was suddenly so obvious that this was what he was thinking. Sasuke had been doing him favour after favour, training him, biting Neji for him, giving him his closure with Sakura – that must have been the tipping point, the news about Sakura. He had developed feelings for Sasuke as a result of his charity. Well. That was interesting.

"I actually do suspect I know," Sasuke said slowly.

Naruto looked like he believed it. "And?" he asked apprehensively.

Sasuke hesitated again. And what? What did he think about it? Perhaps more to the point – though it almost made him roll his eyes – what did he _feel _ about it? Having someone attracted to him wasn't an entirely new experience, but Naruto was the first whom he would have considered a friend, not to mention the first male. The implications were difficult to grasp.

"I don't know," he answered.

"You don't know." Naruto groaned. "Come on, Sasuke, you've got to give me something to go on. If you don't know, how am I supposed to know? If you don't know, then I – I – I'll do something really stupid!"

The empty bag that once contained blood fell from his hand as he rushed forward. Sasuke was fast, but he made no move to prevent what happened as Naruto grabbed his shoulders and kissed him firmly on the lips.

Sasuke's brain promptly left him. Naruto was holding him steady and it was a very good thing this was so, because his body had gone strangely limp, as if he was falling into the kiss. He kissed back, too, there was no question about it. It wasn't conscious. It just happened. Their mouths were moving against each other in perfect time, the warmth of their bodies (though only very slight) meeting, and as if on instinct, Sasuke allowed his tongue to edge forward between Naruto's lips. He knew what to do despite having never done it before, and even though he didn't know what to think, his body could answer the question of what he _felt_ quite easily. He didn't hate it. In fact, it was really, really enjoyable.

He would have cracked a smile if his mouth wasn't busy. This was what he'd been missing? _This _was what Naruto was afraid he'd reject? It was inconceivable. Nobody could reject this. It was the embodiment of pleasure, more intoxicating than any pretence of drunkenness at the bar, and so simple, like he was made for it.

It lasted for longer than he expected but shorter than he found he wanted. Naruto eventually loosened his grip and drew away, looking as amazed as Sasuke felt.

"Woah," he said, exactly like when he drank the blood.

Sasuke just nodded, the fog in his brain slowly lifting.

"You – you see? I do really stupid things sometimes."

"I see that."

"Yeah . . . yeah. So, not to be over-anxious or anything, but do you . . . also do stupid things sometimes? Maybe things that are definitely stupid, but also kind of . . . a little bit . . . really awesome?"

It was a loaded, hopeful question. Two minutes ago Sasuke wouldn't have had a clue what to say, or perhaps wouldn't have even been able to interpret such a query, but now wasn't two minutes ago.

"I suppose I do," he said. This time, the silence that followed was not awkward. It was more the relieved silence of people who had finally shot through the awkwardness and knew they were on the same page at last.

In some ways, at least.

Once the haze had fully dissipated from in his head, Sasuke couldn't help but speculate about how he could use this to work to his advantage. It would be useful to have a different kind of influence over Naruto besides that of a mostly-unnecessary mentor. Naruto certainly wouldn't be starting any more vicious rumours, even if he hadn't been responsible for the first one. Sasuke might even be able to persuade him out of missions and socialising if he became too popular for his own good.

And if more kissing came about, too . . . well, he would hardly complain.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note: **Eep, I'm sorry I took so long. Holidays, work, different story ideas involving lots of Gaara/Neji, and extreme heat in Sydney have all been getting in the way. Plus, I lost my notebook with all my notes for this story in it, and I'd completely blanked on what was supposed to happen in this chapter. Because I'm a genius that way.

* * *

**The Bargain**

"Hurry up," said Sasuke.

"Hold your horses, Oh Great One," Ino replied loftily. "I'm almost done here."

"You'd have been done an hour ago if you didn't keep stopping to hammer him with questions."

"But you guys are suddenly so interesting!"

When she was human, Ino Yamanaka had been a palatine wallflower-to-be in the early nineteenth century, and even though she was quick and agile, fighting was less her style than . . . well, style. She adored fashion of all eras and stayed aware of trends in clothes, jewellery, make-up and hair, which could make her come across as vapid, but was in fact what made her useful. She had all the makings of a perfect spy: when she gossiped, it was never idle. If she so desired, she could spill the most private secrets of every vampire, regardless of whether they had personally told her the secrets or not. She was charming, aloof, had eyes and ears everywhere, and also happened to really enjoy her job.

Preoccupied with appearances, she was naturally the one to go to when Naruto wanted someone to give him a haircut. Like most people these days, she was delighted to see him and Sasuke together.

It had taken approximately half an hour for every single person to find out that Sasuke and Naruto had kissed. Amid choruses of, "Finally!" it somehow got out that Inuzuka had been eavesdropping on them and heard the whole thing, though 'the whole thing' had changed dramatically from the first telling. In the beginning the account was more or less truthful, that Sasuke had done something nice and Naruto was grateful enough to kiss him; within a day this morphed into Naruto drinking Sasuke's blood, turning Sasuke into a masochistic love slave. It was probably Ino herself who started that one, thinking the story needed some spice.

In all honesty, there were few rumours that bothered Sasuke these days. Nobody had mentioned anything about Naruto being the One, Neji had immersed himself in his training with Temari and Kankuro and hadn't tried to wheedle any more personal information out of him, and even all the whispering and giggling went in one ear and out the other. If anything annoyed him, he kissed Naruto and that instantly made him relax.

The first kiss was three months ago now. Missions were sparse and such light work that only weaker people were given them, so all Sasuke's time was divided between training, the bar and Naruto, with training taking the back seat for the first time in his life. Suddenly being around others wasn't nearly as fatiguing as it used to be; perhaps he was being reminded that he enjoyed being the centre of attention and feeling important.

"All right, Naruto, just one more little trim and I'll be all done. But only if you tell me how Sasuke looks naked."

Sasuke felt himself boiling inside, but Naruto just shot Ino a childish grin. "Sorry, Ino, couldn't tell you if I wanted to. It's not like that."

Shaking her head in disbelief, Ino finished up with Naruto's hair. It was now well short of his shoulders and delicately spiked at the very ends, which suited him enormously. Sasuke couldn't deny that the woman knew what she was doing. She tittered, "Honestly! You're dating him and living with him but you can't answer such a simple question?"

"I don't know what to tell you. Though is it really dating if we just sit around in a cave all day? We're not exactly going out. It's just been a little bit of fun a couple of times."

"Oh, I don't believe you for a second. Just because there are no candles and moonlit dinners doesn't mean you're not a hot new couple. I'll bet you have all kinds of fun in that cosy little bed-cave of yours."

"And that's enough of _that_," Sasuke said through tight lips. Not giving Ino another chance to hold them hostage, he grabbed Naruto's wrist and wrenched him away with the urgency of someone escaping a burning building. It wasn't only Ino that worried him: there was also a strong possibility that Naruto would answer her, and that could be just as dreadful. Not that he could tell her much without lying. "For God's sake, Naruto, don't give her any encouragement. She doesn't need it."

Naruto was still grinning as he was pulled away. "Aw, but who else am I going to tell all my dirty secrets? Kiba always covers his ears when I try."

"So he does have a brain. If he found out anything about me, I'd kill him. It was bad enough that he overheard when we – "

"Yeah, yeah, he told everyone we kissed. Embarrassed?"

"Not about what actually happened, but Inuzuka can exaggerate."

"Tell me something. Why do you call him 'Inuzuka'? Surely by now you've known each other long enough to be on a first-name basis."

Sasuke made sure they were definitely far enough away from Ino before murmuring in a low growl, "I'll call him whatever you want if I can shove you against this wall and kiss you."

It may have been worded like a request, but Naruto had learned by now that it wasn't one. "Yes, Sir," he said with a smirk. This was how it always went, every time except for the very first: Sasuke demanded, Naruto complied. More than once, Naruto had teased that it made Sasuke seem desperate and starved for affection over the centuries, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Sasuke didn't do anything out of desperation.

He was using these kisses as a way of asserting his leadership, instilling in Naruto the sense of submission he ought to have. As he pushed Naruto's chest until his back was pressed flat against the rough cave wall, he was proving that whatever happened between them was his decision. _He _was in charge. _He _was the leader, both here in private and out in the world with everyone else. If Naruto tried leaning in to initiate a kiss, Sasuke turned his head the other way, difficult though it sometimes was to resist.

Whether he liked it or not, Sasuke was attracted to him. How bizarre that it had taken such a moment of anger and hatred to realise it.

Their lips crashed against each other's, already parted so that Sasuke's tongue could push through quickly. Inside Naruto's mouth, they tasted each other intensely, and at the same time Naruto ventured to roam with his hands around Sasuke's midsection. It was ambitious – too ambitious. Sasuke elbowed him away.

"No."

"I know, I know, hands off. It's just a reflex." For some reason, Naruto sounded like he was biting back laughter.

"What?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.

"No, it's nothing. It's . . . just funny to remember how old you are. I should be really creeped out by kissing you, but of course I'm not, and it's because sometimes you do things that are really young."

"Like what?"

"Like going three months with only kissing, not even any real touching. It's different. I'm not complaining, though! Don't get me wrong, it's fine, it's just . . . it's very 'this is my first time doing this'. Unless – " A flash of comprehension appeared on Naruto's face. "I'm not going completely the wrong way, am I? You're not trying to be, like, gentlemanly or something, right? Crap, I'll bet you're saving yourself for marriage. And here I am, basically insulting you for it – "

"No, it's nothing like that," Sasuke said slowly. "You were right the first time. I suppose . . . in some ways I'm no older than any human."

The words were awkward in his mouth, because he didn't mean them for a second. It was actually true that there was nothing explicit to tell Ino, but he wasn't shy or uncomfortable about 'firsts', and he definitely wasn't going out of his way to act like a gentleman. The only reason he wasn't allowing this to go any further was that he was saving 'further' for when he really needed it. At the moment, kissing was enough to keep Naruto under his thumb, so any other temptation could be resisted for now.

Not that Naruto made it easy. The instant he had drunk his first blood, everyone noticed that he had mysteriously become quite attractive. Since the news of him and Sasuke started spreading at the same time, nobody propositioned him, but some girls loudly mourned the fact that they had "missed their chance". Meanwhile, Sasuke himself was having a time of it, doing his best to stay aloof while being painfully aware of what he was able to do with Naruto now, and more importantly, what he wanted to do. He wasn't made of stone. He liked the kissing, and he knew he'd like everything else.

He pressed his lips against Naruto's one more time.

"Damn," Naruto said. "You're good at that."

"I know. You tell me every time."

Ino's quarters were fairly central to the cave system, so Sasuke wasn't surprised to pass by several others at intersections after they began walking again. That being said, he was good at noticing little things, and the one he noticed at present was that everyone they passed was headed in _exactly_ the same direction, like rats off a sinking ship. They were in a hurry, too, but trying hard to conceal it.

Sasuke frowned at the unexpected behaviour, and Naruto noticed it as well. "What's with everyone heading down to Gaara's?"

"You think that's what they're doing?"

"Well, yeah. They've got the concert vibe about them – like they're all rushing to get the best seat at a show. And the arena's the only thing that way that could fit an audience, but it's not like Gaara does performances . . . " He trailed off, bewildered.

Overcome by curiosity, they wheeled around and began moving along with the crowd back the way they came. Sure enough, after back-tracking past Ino's, they were led to the arena, where everyone was packed around the entrance, peering around each other and attempting to edge even closer.

Naruto asked if he could get on Sasuke's shoulders for a better look.

Sasuke said no.

They tore politeness asunder and shoved their way through the people, ignoring the protests that followed, until they were right at the front with a perfect view of the sandy arena. Sasuke was slightly puzzled to see that it was almost empty: there was no Gaara, not even any of the usual equipment that littered the ground, but one figure stood out against the vacuum.

"So Kankuro _did _get sick of him," Naruto remarked, for it was indeed Neji who was standing in front of everyone, arms folded and expression confident.

"But if he and Gaara are just going to fight, why would anyone want to watch?" Sasuke murmured querulously. He spotted Temari at the front of the pack, looking tense. Others nearby were pestering her, nudging and whispering, but she ignored them and threw an edgy glance elsewhere into the crowd. Most likely at Kankuro, wherever he was, or perhaps Shikamaru.

Naruto didn't bother with quiet deductions. "Oi, Neji! What did you do to make everyone want to see you get hurt?"

Neji did turn his head towards them slightly, but at the same time there was a sudden swell in the mass of people, and Naruto was pushed and stumbled over. Sasuke instinctively ducked down to catch him as he fell, and out of the far reaches of his hearing he thought he perceived someone going, "Aww!" He hoped it wasn't directed at him. He wasn't that interested in being Aww'd over.

Nothing happened for the longest time: Neji didn't move, Temari didn't move, Gaara didn't arrive, and the horde of spectators remained even though it appeared that very few of them knew why they were even here. At some point, Inuzuka – or Kiba, as Sasuke _supposed _he could start calling him – and Kankuro squeezed their way through the crowd, along with Shino Aburame, a quiet one with whom Kiba spent a lot of time. After quick greetings, compliments on Naruto's hair and a gossipy probing from Kiba that was about as subtle as Ino's, Sasuke and Naruto were able to receive an explanation from Kankuro about what was going on.

"Neji's an arrogant bastard, is what's going on," he said, rolling his eyes. A few people nearby were listening intently, but he didn't seem to mind having an audience. "It's like he's in a competition with everyone else here, only nobody else gives a crap so he's just competing with himself. Most of the time he shuts up and takes advice, but other times . . . Temari mentioned her bonehead boyfriend's a genius, so Neji challenged him to some strategy game I've never heard of. The bonehead refused, which made him mad, so he went and challenged Tenten at throwing stuff at a target. He beat her, but I'm certain she let him win because she's got the hots for him. Not that he looked at her twice. Anyway, then he got all crazy about everyone being made to fight Gaara except him, even though I told him a million times that not everybody does it, and that's when he stormed off over here."

Naruto stared. "He's . . . challenging Gaara. To a fight. Is he insane?"

"Completely. When I told him that Gaara's probably the most violent person on the planet, he got this wild look in his eyes like he couldn't stand anyone being considered better than him. Talk about a complex. Say, Naruto, you've been turning my brother into less of a sociopath lately, right?"

"I think I've gotten him to talk to seven people voluntarily," Naruto said, a hint of pride in his voice. Sasuke was the one rolling his eyes this time.

"That doesn't mean he won't beat Neji to a pulp."

"True," Kankuro admitted grimly. "Oh well, it was nice knowing him. Kind of."

Silence followed. Naruto stood uncomfortably, shifting from foot to foot, before turning to talk to Kiba. Far from relieving the awkwardness, this left Sasuke, Kankuro and Shino standing alone in an attempt at conversation; while Kankuro wasn't short on speech, neither Sasuke nor Shino was particularly good at that. Sasuke found himself feeling uncharacteristically bare without Naruto as a buffer.

"So," Shino began slowly. Sasuke didn't know much about him, but detected an unusual inflection in his voice, possibly hinting at an exotic background. Or maybe he just didn't speak often and had forgotten how to do it. "Why do you suppose Neji is doing this?"

His voice was deep, yet soft and sombre, standing out from the excited mutterings of the crowd around them. For someone who hung around with Kiba a lot, Sasuke had expected loud, obnoxious and persistently in others' faces, so this was a surprise.

"Because he's weirdly obsessed with competition," Kankuro said with an air of finality.

"Is that it, though? I wonder . . . incidentally, Kankuro, if a fight is to occur, on whose side are you? Your brother's or your student's?"

"If you can even call Neji a student. We spend more time asking him about surveillance than he asks us. But I'm on Gaara's side, obviously – he's going to win!"

Of course he was, if he deigned to accept Neji's challenge. Still, Sasuke couldn't ignore that small part of him that threw logic and reason to the wind and wanted to witness the impossible; wanted to believe that Neji, that _anyone_, was good enough to defeat Gaara, even though such a thing was ridiculous. No one had ever overcome him physically. It was said that even the vampire who killed him also died in the attempt. And, most importantly, Sasuke himself couldn't beat Gaara. Some things were just not physically capable of being done.

Even though at least another hour passed without any sign of change, the crowd only grew bigger. Neji, too, hadn't budged an inch.

Suddenly, Naruto straightened up, looking alert. "What was that?"

Everyone turned to him. "What?" asked Kiba.

"I heard something weird. Sounded like . . . something breaking, maybe?"

"Are you sure? I'm not saying I don't believe you, just that unless everyone here magically went quiet simultaneously, I don't know how you could've heard anything over their buzzing. Besides, you have hearing problems."

"I do not!"

"Dude, I can _still _sneak up on you."

"It comes and goes! You make it sound like I'm deaf. Need I remind you that I can see in the dark about a hundred times better than you?"

"Oh, shut up. You know that's only because – "

Kiba ranted on for a while, incorporating a boast about how often he managed to get above ground, but Sasuke's attention was waning as he, too, tried to listen for whatever Naruto claimed to hear. As far as he could tell, there was nothing at all except the noises Kiba described. Certainly no sound of something breaking.

"Hold it," Kankuro said sharply, cutting into Naruto and Kiba's bickering. "Check it out."

Gaara had emerged from the opposite side of the pit.

His face bore a combination of confusion and annoyance as he surveyed the masses of people invading his area, who were finally quietening. They edged forward with eager anticipation, waiting to see what he would do. His eyes went from them to Neji almost accusingly, and he said, "If Kankuro and Temari sent you here, I doubt that they meant for you to recruit everyone you met along the way."

A faint sound of defeat came from within the crowd, from Temari's direction, and Kankuro let out a groan. Sasuke didn't blame them; this wasn't the sort of event with which they would want their names associated, even as Gaara's siblings. He may have been humanised somewhat recently, but he still had no issues with attacking people who moved in on his territory. Ordinarily that just meant individuals being sent to the arena for training, but he often gave off the hostile impression that he could snap at any moment.

"I'm not passing on a message and I didn't invite anyone," Neji said sharply. "I'm here to fight you."

Gaara frowned. "Why?"

"Indulge me."

"I'm not saying that I won't. I have no qualms about fighting you at all, but I can't see the point, from your perspective. What could you possibly gain from submitting yourself to my training?"

The crowd listened with baited breath, of which Neji seemed acutely aware. In Sasuke's opinion, he was revelling in the spectacle he'd created, and perhaps didn't even realise that everyone was here to watch him make an idiot out of himself.

Neji studied the people, then declared dramatically, "If I can defeat the strongest fighter in this place, then I gain the knowledge that when I decide to walk out of here and return to my normal life, none of you will be able to stop me."

That caused a whole range of reactions: the crowd became alive with noise again, mostly sounds of shock and disbelief; Kankuro's jaw dropped in outrage, Naruto exclaimed, "_What?"_ as loudly as he could, and even Shino's clouded expression turned surprised. It was Sasuke, however, who caused the others to take note and stare, as he couldn't help but let out a single, sharp laugh.

"Was that you?" Kiba gawked at him in disbelief. "Hey, Naruto, I think Sasuke's broken. He _laughed._"

"Ah, yeah, I've been meaning to get that checked out – but more importantly, did you _hear_ what Neji just said?"

"It's ridiculous," said Sasuke. "What else can you do but laugh at him? He has no idea what he's doing."

"But . . . can he do that?"

"Walk out and stop being a vampire? Of course not."

It was idiotic. He would starve, for one thing, and if he attempted to ingest ordinary food he would only succeed in making himself sick. He would remain colour blind (which could only hinder his archery, surely), and most significantly, he would be invisible to all but his own peculiar family. There was no way for it to be done.

Naruto sighed and turned back to Gaara, who wasn't looking overly impressed.

"And if you lose, you'll get out of my arena and take your support team with you?"

"Of course," Neji replied.

It was very sporting of Gaara, Sasuke reflected, to say '_if _you lose'. _If. _Like there was any question about it. However, following those words he tossed sportsmanship to the wayside and lunged at Neji, instantly in combat mode. People gasped, sounding awed; possibly they'd never fully appreciated Gaara's skill before, since the only opportunity they'd had to see it was while on the receiving end of it. He only needed to take a few clear-cut steps before veering off sideways to catch Neji with a strike to the side of his neck.

Neji threw up an elbow to deflect it. Then, unshakeably, his blocking arm did a graceful movement, circling over his own head and shoulder, until it formed its own counter-attack using the side of his hand like a knife. It missed by a mile – Gaara was long gone – and Sasuke felt a flash of irritation. He didn't like the way Neji moved; it was too . . . rehearsed. As Neji deftly stepped and pivoted to watch Gaara from all angles, it became more and more obvious that he was well-versed in some archaic (even by Sasuke's standards) martial art, controlled and almost dance-like. Sasuke didn't believe in having a set fighting style: each opponent was different, so there was no point using a memorised routine to defeat them.

Plus, Neji hit with open palms. Sasuke preferred punches – they were much more satisfying.

Gaara varied his positions and attacks, going in close to punch or kick and then retreating to perform long-range stunts that surprised a lot of the spectators: Sasuke could smugly say that he knew from experience that underneath the arena's thin layer of sand on the ground, small, flat objects were scattered about to be picked up and used as projectile weapons. So when Gaara crouched down and produced a smooth, Oriental-looking blade from seemingly out of nowhere, Sasuke was the only one not visibly shocked when he sent it hurtling at Neji's face.

To his credit, Neji remained steadfast, never flailing or collapsing under what was doubtlessly a vicious onslaught. He moved only when he needed to, going on the offensive only at the widest windows of opportunity, and apart from a small cut on his forehead from the throwing blade he stayed uninjured for a good five minutes. Naruto, Kiba and Kankuro were all watching as if mesmerised, but Sasuke knew that Gaara wasn't using his entire arsenal in this fight. It was a game to him, a game of cat-and-mouse, luring the overconfident rodent right where it couldn't escape before pouncing, claws beared. All it would take was for Gaara to get bored with toying with Neji, and that would be the end of it.

Neji's eyes darted about more than his feet. He seemed to always be on the lookout for an ambush from behind; probably an instinct from the teenaged kidnapping attempt. Whatever it was, it served him well as he did something incredible.

After Gaara raced out of his vision for the hundredth time, he glanced left, even though everyone watching had clearly seen Gaara move right. But, while facing completely the wrong way, his right leg shot out from under him and swept into a huge, arcing axe kick, which landed right in the spot where Gaara's face now was. It connected with a loud _thud._

A gale-sound swept through the crowd as everyone gasped. Even Sasuke's lungs felt a little fuller than usual. Neji must have noticed because he withdrew his leg, took a few steps back for safety, and stared at his audience with bemused eyes, like he had expected a reaction, but not this one.

He had hit Gaara. Plenty of people tried to hit Gaara, but no one actually succeeded.

"Fuck," breathed Kankuro, speaking for all of them.

All eyes were on Gaara, just waiting to see his reaction. Sasuke knew that a kick that precise could have wracked a normal opponent with excruciating pain, at best, and at worst a broken jaw and a slip into unconsciousness. Of course, Gaara was far from a normal opponent, so he may well have been unusually resistant to injury – or, conversely, since nobody had ever succeeded at hitting him before, he could have been very fragile.

They waited, but not for long. Gaara's eyes narrowed, and then he became a blur of movement once again. It was as if nothing had happened.

_There isn't a fragile bone in his body, _Sasuke thought with a degree of satisfaction. If winning a fight against Gaara was that easy, someone else would have done it. Neji wasn't nearly as amazing as he thought he was.

Gaara moved faster, faster, grains of sand being flung into the air so far that Sasuke had to shield his eyes from them, and then came a series of cracking noises that sounded like a cat-o'-nine-tails being administered. Everybody winced; they knew that sound well. Gaara had broken Neji's bones. When the sand settled they saw that the two had separated, Gaara standing at one end of the arena looking austere, and Neji fallen to his knees at the other, both his arms limp against his sides.

"Ouch, _ouch_, that's disgusting!" Naruto grimaced, revolted. "His elbows – "

"Are sticking out worse than hash in _Hamlet_," Kiba finished.

"It can't have been that bad when Gaara smashed me up the first time. The old doctor lady kept telling me what a wreck I was, and I remember not being able to feel my face or legs, but still. This is gross! Poor guy. It must be killing him."

"He's taking it well," observed Shino. It was true that Neji wasn't crying out in pain or surrender, but Sasuke could read the subtle clues on his face that showed how much the injuries were affecting him: the shift in the contours of his cheek indicated that he was gritting his teeth, and possibly biting his tongue, to stop any unwanted sounds escaping him; his eyebrows were deeply furrowed and his eyes were fixed on the ground as he gathered his willpower and thoughts of what he could possibly do to fix this; and on top of it all, beads of sweat were forming around his hairline. His body was struggling.

Gaara mercifully ignored him for a moment, scrutinising his own hands as if checking to make sure none of Neji's blood had gotten on him. Most of the crowd was still utterly transfixed by Neji, so they didn't get to see what Sasuke did as he watched Gaara's self-examination. Running down the palm of Gaara's left hand was a long, deep gash that looked like it must have only recently stopped bleeding itself.

Sasuke frowned. How had that happened? Neji couldn't have done it or else everyone would have noticed.

"Do you think Gaara's giving Neji a chance to give up?" Naruto whispered, leaning over to talk into Sasuke's ear. "Oh, wait – no, look, there he goes again!" And so Gaara had. "Shit, you'd have to be a real sadist to enjoy watching this. I think I just heard ten more bones break."

_Heard more bones break . . . _those words struck a chord. "Naruto, you said before that you heard the sound of something breaking?"

"Oh, _now _someone believes me . . ."

"Was it like something being smashed? Shattered?"

"Er . . . I guess, maybe. Why?"

Sasuke didn't answer, just turned back to watch Neji get pummelled some more. At the same time, he collected his thoughts: Naruto heard something break. Seconds later, Gaara appeared with an injury. Surely, _surely, _the two couldn't have been connected, because that would mean that Naruto had overheard something that had happened at least a hundred yards away from him. Even for a vampire, that was sensational.

He shook his head. It couldn't be anything more than a coincidence.

Eventually, the entertainment of the fight slipped away. It was incredibly anticlimactic, as the longer it was drawn out, the less Neji was able to defend, attack, or even move. It was the conclusion everyone had expected, but because of the bizarre way this had started and Neji's audacious declaration that he wanted to leave their community, deep down they all wondered if something unpredictable would happen. When it didn't, there was a palpable air of disappointment, and gradually people trickled out of the cave and back to their own business. The ones with weak stomachs exited a little more quickly.

When Neji finally passed out from pain and exhaustion, Kiba volunteered to carry him off to Tsunade, and Shino went with him to help. Kankuro called out a hasty, "Good one," to Gaara that was more awkward than brotherly, then muttered something about it being his turn on guard duty. After he hurried off, only Sasuke, Naruto and Gaara himself remained.

Naruto approached Gaara to talk, unafraid even after the violent spectacle. "Hey! So, that was . . . fun?"

Without offering direct eye contact, Gaara responded, "I don't know why anyone wanted to watch that at all. Normally they ignore what I do because it makes them uncomfortable."

"I guess they really wanted to see Neji. They like him."

"Do they?" Sasuke interjected, raising an eyebrow.

"Or hate him, I'm not really sure. But it was kind of interesting what he said, don't you think? About wanting to go back to his old life. I wonder how many people down here think stuff like that. Do you ever wish you could be normal again?"

_Not for a second_, Sasuke thought, but Gaara just said, "That was a very long time ago."

"Oh, wow! I totally forgot about that. I always do. I guess the world as it is now would be pretty weird for you, huh? I've only been a vampire for two and a half years and I'm worried everything up above ground will be different."

"If change bothers you, don't go up on missions anymore. I don't."

"What, never go up there ever again? Never again get blinded by the sun? Never get to go on a moonlit stroll on the beach for a date?" Naruto winked at Sasuke, but Sasuke could see that his cheery expression was somewhat forced, concealing what he really felt. There was wistfulness in his eyes, and even though it was in no way Sasuke's fault, he felt a stirring of guilt about it.

Gaara shrugged, the prospect of moonlit beach walks obviously of no interest to him, and started off in the direction from which he'd first arrived. His own personal quarters were likely just off the arena that way. Naruto made no mention of having seen his injured hand.

So that left Sasuke and Naruto alone, which was usually how they liked it, but it was clear that Naruto was in no mood for frivolous conversation and kissing. Well, he almost certainly _would _have kissed Sasuke if it was demanded of him, but Sasuke didn't want to force him when he was unhappy. Not out of consideration for his emotions, of course, but because kisses would become useless as coercion material if he associated them with anything negative. For now, they would just talk instead.

"You sound homesick," Sasuke said after a while. "I didn't think you got that anymore."

Naruto smiled weakly. "I don't, usually. Haven't in ages. But I guess hearing Neji say he wanted to drop everything and go home even if it meant fighting his way out . . . reminded me a little bit. And it's not even about Sakura this time. I miss my job, my apartment, the study I was doing to prepare for university, even my psycho landlord who never stopped bugging me about making noise even though I _never did. _And food! God, you have no idea how much I miss food!"

Sasuke did have some idea. After all, Naruto complained about it practically every morning when he woke up.

"And showering, too. I'm not exactly a clean freak, and I like that I hardly ever feel dirty anymore, but sometimes there's no better feeling than a good, scalding shower. And I haven't even begun to mention T.V. yet!"

"I get the impression that if Neji hadn't reminded you, something else would have. It seems like this has been building up for a while," said Sasuke.

"Yeah, I guess so. Hard not to miss stuff when living down in a cave system is so freaking boring! I mean . . . " Naruto's cheeks appeared to colour slightly. "You're not boring. You're just about the only thing down here that keeps me sane."

There it was, the same affectionate tone that he had used when calling Sasuke a 'good guy' back all that time ago. It caused an uncomfortable knot in Sasuke's stomach and made his mouth form words without his brain's full consent.

"Follow me."

Naruto looked at him inquisitively. "Follow you? To the bar, or to bed?"

"Neither. Come on, before I change my mind."

It was odd, Sasuke reflected, that even though he considered himself perfectly in control of his actions, Naruto had a way of worming inside his defences. In spite of himself, he _wanted _to be the good guy in Naruto's eyes, and this meant he had to tread very carefully if he wanted to be both altruistic and in control at the same time. Especially now that more than friendship was on the table. He refused to be one of those people who let their emotions determine their decisions.

It didn't take much walking for Naruto to realise where they were headed; the sharp turn and narrow, empty passage gave it away. "Hey, are you – are we going up? Above ground?"

"That's what we're doing."

"Hey, my first time sneaking out! That's so cool! But – if you don't mind me asking – why?"

"You'll see."

"Are we going for a moonlit stroll on – "

"_No._"

"Aw, fine. Well, whatever we're doing, awesome. It's a date." Naruto was grinning. Sasuke was regretting his charitable idea already.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note: **Woah. Okay, so I moved house again in February and _only just got Internet this week. _That's right, I had no home Internet for almost three months. They write apocalyptic stories about that kind of scenario. But now I'm back, and I can get back to work! You'd think those three months would have given me lots of time to write, but I spent most of the weeks panicking about how I was supposed to get my uni stuff done. The answer was, I didn't. I'm not having a great semester. XD

I'm also a little bit worried, since it's been so long, that this chapter will feel a bit disconnected from the last one. I kept having to go back and fix continuity errors. Hopefully it all works out. Enjoy!

* * *

**Recollection**

As Sasuke led him through the twisted tunnels and out past Kankuro (who turned a blind eye, nicely enough), Naruto was struck dumb by the fact that for the first time ever, he was sneaking out of home. Even when he was a normal person, his parents had died so long ago that he never got the typical, sneaking-out teenage years. Of course, there were some quite obvious differences between this and how he'd always imagined it to be: for one thing, he never expected to be sneaking _into _his own apartment instead of out of it, but that was exactly what he intended to do if Sasuke gave him the chance.

He missed home. There was no doubt about it. Being a vampire was fun, obviously, as was having Sasuke as his … boyfriend? Extremely good friend? Well, that was still a bit unclear. They'd only been 'together' for three months, and in Naruto's moderate-but-not-at-all-excessive experience, that could mean anything. Either way, the fun parts could only occupy so many hours of the day, and when they were over there was a lot of time for boredom, for longing for all the creature comforts lying locked away in his bedroom hundreds of miles away. Worse, sometimes he felt like he was the only one who ever felt that way. Maybe he was, being the only one used to twenty-first century luxuries.

He hoped he could convince Sasuke to let him go back home, if only for a minute.

"Watch your eyes this time," Sasuke warned him as soon as a speck of light became visible at the end of the long tunnel.

"I know, I know! I'm not an idiot."

"If it talks like an idiot and walks into the sun like an idiot …"

"Once! And as if you never did it."

"No, I definitely didn't, because I'm _smart_, you see."

"Of course, the genius Jesus," Naruto grumbled under his breath.

He did slow down and close his eyes enough that he was just barely able to peer through the slivers of his eyelashes, but he tried not to let Sasuke see that he did. Perhaps he needn't have bothered, though: when they emerged from the cave, the sky was a stencil of greys and whites and was so drab that the sudden influx of light didn't feel damaging or painful at all. After a few quick blinks to cope with the glare and a short walk to civilisation, Naruto was able to look around and take in the sights of his home city.

It looked exactly the same. Two years wasn't _that _long, Naruto admitted, but he still expected a little bit of innovation. There was a tower in the distance marring the skyline in a way he didn't remember, and the nearby strip of shops appeared to have been renovated, but that was it. No 1984-style dystopia, no global warming disasters, no alien invasions.

_No aliens, but plenty of vampires_, he mused. _That's something, I guess. _

A few streets later, it became clear that Sasuke was deliberately lagging behind, not pushing Naruto in one direction over another, wordlessly offering him freedom of choice regarding where they were to go. As soon as Naruto realised this, his brain nearly exploded with possibilities.

He could find Sakura.

He could go shopping.

He could stuff himself full of as much greasy food-court food as he could handle before collapsing on a real bed.

Although, come to think of it, vampires weren't actually able to digest food, were they? And it wasn't like he had any money on him with which to go shopping. (Come to think of it, what would have happened to the meagre savings he'd accumulated when he was working?) And, most importantly, the whole being-invisible thing would put quite a large dampener on his plan to stroll into a department store and grab everything in sight … and to speak to Sakura at last …

If Naruto was honest with himself, now that the opportunity was present, finding Sakura wasn't quite at the top of his priority list anymore. He still missed her like crazy, but somehow his desperation to contact her at any cost had dialled itself down lately, probably courtesy of Sasuke providing such an enormous distraction. The fact that Naruto knew that _Sakura _knew he was fine only made it easier to see that the emergency just wasn't there now. Plus, he never actually figured out what he planned on saying if he _did _see her – tell the truth? Would that even work?

What if she went all _Twilight _on him and begged to be made a vampire, too? That didn't sound like her, true, but underneath her cool sensibility there was definitely a layer of girly romanticism. Throughout their teenage years, posters had lined every inch of her bedroom walls, with very noticeable themes: actors, most of whom Naruto didn't recognise, all some years her senior, from Broadway productions, sci-fi movies and period piece dramas. She had had a weakness for the typical tall, dark and handsome cliché; although she'd never admit it, she had wanted her own fairy tale romance for years.

Naruto threw a sideways glance at Sasuke, who looked back.

"What?"

"I just realised," Naruto said. "You'd be totally Sakura's type if … y'know."

"Her 'type'?" Sasuke appeared to reflect on that for a moment, but he didn't make any sort of comment, nor ask how Naruto had planned on finishing his sentence. That was probably a good thing, because Naruto wasn't entirely sure himself; he had gotten tongue-tied and found himself teetering between three options.

'_If you were born in the same century.'_

'_If you swung that way.'_

'_If you weren't _mine._'_

He even emphasised 'mine'in his head. It was weird, if not a little embarrassing. Was he getting possessive or something? That was kind of insane, considering he and Sasuke weren't even a real couple. They were … hard to define. Which was good. It would be boring if it was easy. But the point was, if they only had the faintest semblance of what anyone would call a relationship, Naruto would be stupid to get territorial over it.

Besides, it wasn't as if Sasuke was the promiscuous type, so it was a moot point. That cheered him up slightly.

Guiltily shelving his thoughts of Sakura, Naruto mentioned that he wanted to go home, just for a minute, and to his surprise Sasuke nodded without hesitation. It was a decent walk from where they were, a trek that usually left Naruto breathless and weak in the calves, but either pleasant nostalgia or the fact that he had all these tough, new vampire muscles made it easy.

"You lived _here?"_ Sasuke remarked distastefully when they arrived, staring at the dull, gargantuan apartment building before them.

Naruto bristled. "For someone who lives in a cave, you're awfully judgmental. What did you expect, a mansion?"

"It doesn't suit you. You're far too optimistic for a place like this, not to mention far too eager to return. I hope it's better on the inside."

"Sure, as long as you don't mind regular harassment from the landlord, trying to catch you sneaking in a pet, or drugs, or … or …"

He trailed off, realising something that made him feel completely stupid. Sasuke raised an eyebrow inquiringly at him, but it was so embarrassing that he wasn't sure he wanted to share it.

"I'm an idiot," he wearily said after a minute of internal berating. "I rented this place. No one's been around to pay my rent for _two years. _What do you think the odds are that any of my stuff is still anywhere _near_ this building?"

"Ah." Sasuke's expression managed to turn slightly sympathetic. "Almost zero."

His frankness wasn't really what Naruto wanted now that he had to mourn the fact that he'd lost his home; still, he would only be an even bigger idiot to expect some huge emotional display out of a guy who wouldn't even spontaneously kiss him. Maybe it was being three hundred, or maybe it was a result of some other weird repression, but Sasuke and openness were at opposite ends of the dichotomy. One quick look of sympathy was probably all he was capable of showing.

Not that Naruto minded, normally. He liked Sasuke a lot. This whole apartment thing was just a big mood-killer.

"So I've got no more home," he said soberly.

Sasuke still offered no encouragement, although he bowed his head so that the shadows on his face deepened. Was that in itself meant to communicate something?

Pressing him, Naruto demanded, "Well, what now? This whole trip to the surface was your big gesture, so where does it go?"

Still nothing but another turn of the head. Christ, it was like trying to interpret alien signals! Maybe next time Naruto was in the mood for a laugh he'd make up a chart. _Understanding the Sasuke: your guide to glares, glances, growls and more! Everything from eye rolls (which mean he thinks you're an idiot) to super eye rolls (which mean he thinks you're a _colossal_ idiot, but also sexy and completely irresistible)._

He allowed himself a small grin. Even now, he was easily amused.

"Just go in," said Sasuke.

He blinked, surprised. "Huh?"

Sasuke's head was tilted up as he stared at the highest windows on the front of the building. His hands were scrunched deeply in his pockets and his eyebrows were knitted into a frown, but not the usual dissatisfied frown that he'd sported for nearly the entire first year Naruto had known him. In fact, this was a face that Naruto only distinctly remembered seeing once before: when Sasuke had first laid eyes on Neji – or more specifically, Neji's bow.

At the time, he'd said, "That's inconvenient," like it was just another ant-sized obstacle to step over.

"Which storey is yours?" Sasuke asked quietly. "Which window?"

"The – the third. Right on the left corner, that's my bedroom. But what –"

"You've come this far. Maybe the new tenants kept your furniture. Maybe this place is shit enough that there are no new tenants. You'll feel more stupid if you don't find out."

Naruto was caught in disbelief. He'd certainly gathered over the years that Sasuke was no stranger to rule-breaking, but this must have been the sort of crime that was worth the vampire equivalent of capital punishment. He couldn't help but get a sickly warm feeling in his stomach at the thought that Sasuke would take illegal risks just to give him something he wanted. That was … kind of cool. A bit sappy, but cool.

"All right, you've successfully cheered me up." He laughed. "And I won't pretend I'm not really, really tempted, but it's got to be a dumb idea, doesn't it? I know I usually have the dumb ideas and you have the good ones, but not this time. I mean, how would we even get in? I don't have my key handy."

"That didn't stop you at the Hyuuga compound," Sasuke pointed out.

"So I should climb up the wall and break a window? I can't tell if I'm supposed to be Spiderman or one of the villains." By now Naruto was finding it hard to keep a straight face at all.

"I'm not joking."

"That's what's funny."

With a perfunctory glance to make sure they really were invisible – not that there were any bystanders to spot them – Naruto wandered around to the corner of the building and stood up against it to gauge its height. The idea of climbing it was definitely borderline insane, but _theoretically _he supposed he could see how it should be done. A window ledge here, a makeshift clothesline there … and this style of climbing and jumping was exactly the sort of thing he'd practised a few times with Gaara.

Still, in the arena, he had felt agile and invincible. Out here he was his normal, clumsy self, and his body had never felt heavier.

He looked despairingly at Sasuke, who was beginning to look impatient, but he didn't want to ask for help. He used to always be the one who never needed help doing the scary stuff: when he went to amusement parks he was the first in line for the massive rollercoaster every time, and he laughed when his friends turned green with nausea. He was no wuss. _Anyone _would be freaked out by the idea of climbing a three-storey wall with no protection whatsoever, not just him.

He reached for a low-sitting pipe that was just above his head and pulled on it experimentally; it creaked and wobbled, so he quickly withdrew his hand, but then he wasn't sure if wobbled because the pipe was weak or because he was really strong.

"Just jump," said Sasuke.

"_You _just jump!"

Sasuke shrugged and grabbed at the pipe.

"Hey, I didn't mean it!" Naruto exclaimed furiously. Not allowing himself to lose, he seized the pipe again, too, just as Sasuke used it to vault himself up to the first-floor window sill. It was such a clean, fluid movement; Naruto couldn't possibly have matched it in a hundred years. All the same, he tried, wrenching with all his might and jumping simultaneously.

The pipe snapped off, leaking water everywhere.

"Don't say anything," he growled at Sasuke, who was smirking above him.

"You need some self-control."

Naruto grumbled some unsavoury things under his breath as he grappled for a new place to launch himself up. Self-control … it was all well and good for Sasuke to preach self-control; it was easy to control yourself if you apparently had no natural urges whatsoever. Yes, this was venturing into very different territory, but he obviously didn't have the _control _to stop his thoughts going there. No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he was getting frustrated.

Why did Sasuke refuse to do anything past kissing? Apparently it wasn't some ancient, seventeenth-century code of conduct issue. What possible, fathomable reason could there be, after the age of about eighteen, to postpone having sex for three months? He must have been a robot. A stupid, exasperating, handsome, wildly fun-to-kiss robot.

Seething, almost unconsciously, his hand found a brick that was jutting out from the others and pulled him into a one-armed chin-up. He didn't even notice until he reached another window, on the same level as Sasuke's. When he did, he blinked dumbly.

"Did I just do that?"

"Remarkably so." Sasuke had a small frown on his face, which was only visible for a second before he turned and began reaching for another pipe higher up.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. Sasuke was trying to _beat _him.

Well, he wasn't going to let that happen. This was _his _apartment building and _his _chance to perform some awesome stunts. He looked up, but the pipe Sasuke was using didn't extend all the way along the wall, so there was nothing to grab. In fact, the wall appeared to have nowhere smoother and straighter than right above this window.

For a minute he was tempted to see if the window was unlocked and try to sneak in. it was a long minute, but he came to his senses and kept looking for another way.

It was no use. There was nothing besides that pipe, and there was no way he could reach that far. It must have been two, three metres away. Meanwhile Sasuke had reached a second-floor air-conditioning unit and was comfortably perched on top, watching.

_Okay, _Naruto said to himself. _Just think. _But thinking under pressure wasn't his strong suit – he was more of a 'leap before you look' kind of guy – and to make matters worse, he had just accidentally looked down. It wasn't even that high, but his balance was precarious at best, so his heart and adrenalin were pumping way too fast to allow him to think. Suddenly it seemed insane to be here, on this window, when the one Sasuke had been on was so obviously safer … and it wasn't that far away, really …

"What are you doing?" Sasuke's voice sounded distant, but Naruto wasn't paying any attention as he launched himself off his ledge towards the other one. "Stop!"

Too late. He was in the air, flying forward, his body now so overcome with panic that it had gone completely numb. He could count time in quarter-seconds … a half … three quarters … one whole second … and his feet connected painlessly with the brick window sill. He reached out for something to help him steady himself, but there was nothing. His nails scraped against brick, against glass, but nothing he could hold – his own weight threw him sideways and he was falling away from the wall – he could see movement as everything rushed and blurred around him …

Then Sasuke was grabbing his arm, holding onto the air conditioner only with his legs. He was completely upside down. Naruto hung on awkwardly.

"You," Sasuke said quietly, "have got to be the biggest idiot in the world."

Now that he wasn't jumping or falling, Naruto felt his face burning as he, too, realised exactly how stupid he'd just been. "You didn't have to –"

"Believe me, I considered letting you break your leg. What the hell happened? I've seen you climb before."

"Yeah, with Gaara, but this is my apartment building! Maybe it's all the same to you, but I don't really feel very vampire-y right now. I think I had a panic attack or something."

It looked like Sasuke rolled his eyes, but it was hard to tell when he was upside down. In one smooth move, he lifted his body into an impressive vertical sit-up that got him back on top of the air conditioner, bringing Naruto up with him. Naruto's stomach lurched at the new altitude, but at least he was sitting on something solid. Small, but solid.

Sasuke examined his arm and frowned: Naruto had left fingernail marks all along it. "The whole point of training with Gaara is so that when you need to, you can use what you learn there on the surface. You need to have skills that humans don't have. For all you know, scaling a building may be all that keeps you alive one day, when the battle happens."

None of that sentence appealed to Naruto. He wanted to object, to say that he still wasn't totally convinced that any battle against humanity had to occur since their intentions weren't sinister, but on this issue he knew Sasuke was like a brick wall. Sasuke didn't bat an eyelid when it came to violence – in some contexts it was actually really cool – and he was obviously really proud of being the One, even if he never said so. Naruto hadn't forgotten how livid he'd been when that rumour about him being replaced started spreading. Who started that, anyway?

"Do you need me to carry you the rest of the way?" Sasuke smirked.

"Oh, bite me."

"Vampire jokes? Because, as you may recall, I _did _bite you once." He pretended to reminisce. "You tasted … sub-par."

"Sub-par!" Naruto exclaimed. "You're such a dirty liar. I'll bet I'm the best you've ever had." He tried to mime pushing Sasuke off the edge, but somehow managed to lose his own balance again; Sasuke had to wrap his arms around him to keep them both steady. Naruto observed with amusement that this was the most physical contact they'd had in ages. "Besides, how long ago was it when someone bit _you?_ I'll bet they thought you were terrible."

"Well." Sasuke's breath was hot against Naruto's ear. "Perhaps eventually you can taste me yourself and find out."

Naruto swallowed, throat suddenly tight. That remark didn't quite fit a conversation about blood.

"Let's – let's keep going, shall we?"

He tried not to think about it as they slowly climbed up the rest of the way, but Sasuke kept a hand on him the whole time. At first it seemed overly cautious, but it did make the ascent easier, although Naruto did _not _want to admit that. At last they were gripping intently onto the bricks right below his old bedroom window. Inside, he could see that the ratty blind was pulled down, still looking as cheap and depressing as when he'd left, rippling slightly from the breeze that permeated the thin glass pane. He apprehensively reached to test the latch and, to his surprise, it flipped open with no resistance.

"Woah! It's unlocked. Uh, what do I do now?"

Sasuke looked at him like he was stupid.

"I just … go in?" Naruto said uncertainly. "What if someone else lives there? What if they're home? What if they work the night shift and sleep in the afternoon, so I climb in and fall right on top of them in their bed? I don't think I could explain my way out of that."

"If you would learn to use your ears instead of imagining the least likely scenarios, you'd know there's no one even _close_ to this apartment," Sasuke pointed out.

"Oh."

"You can't have scaled the whole wall without realising you'd be going in. That was the whole point."

Naruto shuffled nervously. Yeah, this wasn't exactly unexpected; he just had no idea how alien it would feel. This was nothing like breaking into the Hyuuga place, which had the atmosphere and technology of the average heist movie. This felt properly criminal. A small part of him even wondered, if he was willing to do this, would it turn into a slippery slope where he wouldn't mind doing worse crimes in the future? Like mass murder of humans?

Still … he was inches from being home. He had to see if there was any remnant of his old life here. Quashing all the uncomfortable feelings, he opened the window as far as it could go and pushed aside the blind. Climbing through wasn't easy, but a minute later he was falling onto a small bed, thankfully without anyone inside it. When he lifted his head, he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Sasuke," he whispered as the other slipped in after him. "Look."

"What?" Sasuke frowned.

"It's – it's my home."

"That's why we're here, isn't it?"

"No, I mean it's _really _my home." Forgetting his worries, Naruto sprang off the bed and sprinted into the next room. "That's my bed. This is my table. Oh my God – this is my savings box, and it's still got all my money in it!"

Unbelievable happiness welled up inside him as he stared at the old dollar bills, their enormous implications swimming in his head but refusing to settle. All of his belongings were still here after his years of absence, nothing even remotely out of place. The apartment was as much his as it ever had been. Walking around in a daze, filled with nostalgia, he ran his hands longingly over his couch, his tiny TV, the stack of library been studying (though he tried not to imagine the late fees they must have accrued). Dust covered almost everything, but he didn't care.

He turned around to ask Sasuke if he'd be allowed to bring back a few souvenirs, only to find that Sasuke hadn't followed him out of the bedroom. Returning there, he commented, "You can explore, you know. I've got nothing to hide."

Sasuke looked extremely disturbed.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, hoping it was nothing so he could continue to be cheerful.

"I'm trying to understand how this makes sense."

"The apartment?"

"You said it yourself. After a tenant disappears, what sane landlord waits years before clearing out his belongings? Nothing's been touched in months, at least, so no effort has been made to replace you. This isn't normal." Suddenly, Sasuke's eyes became alert and aware. "Unless this place is still being treated as a crime scene after your disappearance."

"No way," Naruto said, his happy grin fading. He couldn't believe that. No one he knew had the power to authorise a three-year-long investigation by police; besides, didn't Sasuke tell Sakura – the only one close enough to him to demand that sort of thing – ages ago that he was fine?

Sasuke ignored him. His eyes darted around the room, focused on the ceiling, possibly trying to spot hidden cameras or microphones. Naruto was positive he wouldn't find anything, but stopping him seemed impossible. Defeated, he muttered, "I know it's fine. If you need me, I'm going to have a shower."

He didn't feel dirty or anything, but that shower would definitely relax him and make him feel like he was home for good. Entering his shoebox of a bathroom and undressing, he tried not to ask the same question that was plaguing Sasuke: why _was _everything normal? He told himself firmly that it was just good luck, that something was allowed to go his way for once, and that it was nothing suspicious; then he stepped into the shower and eagerly twisted the tap.

Nothing happened.

For a second it didn't register. Naruto blinked in confusion and twisted a little bit harder, to no avail. He got out again and tried the sink instead: nothing. The water must have been shut off.

There were no words to describe how crushingly disappointing this was. Naruto slumped to the floor, suddenly drained of all energy. All he could think about was how much he wanted that stupid shower. It would have made everything all better and he couldn't have it. There probably wasn't any food or electricity either, was there? Great.

Minutes later, the sound of footsteps approached the bathroom door and Sasuke's voice rang out. "Have you finished? The apartment is –"

"Don't come in!" Naruto yelled, leaping to his feet, but he wasn't fast enough: the door handle rotated from the outside and Sasuke walked in, only to find Naruto standing there, completely naked, eyes frozen wide.

Sasuke didn't move at first – during which time Naruto fumbled for something to say – before giving a wry smile. "Bare. I was going to say, the apartment is bare. No hidden surveillance."

Naruto snapped out of his embarrassment and hastily grabbed the sole towel in the bathroom. He tried to convince himself this was no big deal, but it was. Since getting together, he'd barely been allowed to put his hands on Sasuke, let alone see him naked (did he _ever _change clothes?) and this was getting a bit one-sided. "The – uh – the water's not working. I'm just getting dressed again."

That weird smile didn't leave.

"What?" Naruto said apprehensively.

"Don't."

"Don't …"

"You should kiss me instead."

That almost made Naruto laugh. So that was what the smile meant! "Seriously, now? Why?"

"Because I want to kiss you."

It was incredible how much Naruto's emotions were jumping all over the place lately. Happy to be above ground, sad to lose his home, happy to have his home back, sad about water … now Sasuke was turning him into a grinning idiot because he found him good-looking. That was it, wasn't it? They liked each other's personalities just fine, which was why they'd survived living together for two years, but it was only after seeing each other as they really were, in healthy colour, that anything changed. They first kissed because they'd each seen how hot the other one was.

Come to think of it, it was always when Naruto did something to his appearance that Sasuke instigated kissing. There was his haircut earlier; there was the time Kiba had given him a pair of sunglasses he'd acquired from some mysterious source; and of course the time Temari punched him in the stomach and he'd peeled his shirt up to examine the bruise.

So it was all a physical thing. Well, okay. Naruto could deal with that. It didn't hurt that Sasuke was pretty fine physically himself.

"Well, I want you to kiss me," Naruto said, confident now that he knew where he stood. "Go ahead."

For some reason, a spasm of conflict passed over Sasuke's face. That didn't happen often. "No," he said quickly.

So much for being confident. Why would he change his mind? What issue he was grappling with, Naruto had no idea, but he didn't really like it. He didn't want only half of Sasuke's affection, even if it was entirely superficial.

He paused before deciding to experiment a little. He took a step forward so that he and Sasuke were almost nose to nose, and as he walked he allowed the towel around his waist to drop to the floor. He heard Sasuke's breathing shift and watched him try to keep his eyes steady. It looked difficult. Naruto had no doubt whatsoever that, for the first time, they were doing things on his terms. "I want you to kiss me," he said boldly.

A strange glaze had come over Sasuke's eyes; barely audibly, he whispered, "Damn you," before grabbing Naruto's shoulders and shoving him against the shower door. They were kissing, Sasuke's hands were on him, and _his hands were on Sasuke and were not being stopped. _

He wasn't going to waste this chance. He slipped his hands under Sasuke's shirt, feeling the angle of his hip, the warm, flat skin of his stomach, and his smooth, strong chest. It filled Naruto with an incredible sense of right; this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing and he could keep doing it forever. He pulled Sasuke in closer, pressing them chest against chest, groaning into his mouth. One of Sasuke's hands was encircling his waist, holding him in place. Their tongues worked together to allow each of them to experience every wonderful taste and movement. For the first time since becoming a vampire, Naruto felt hot, on the verge of sweating.

As his fingers ran up to bury themselves in Sasuke's dark hair, Sasuke's other hand was going in the opposite direction. When it reached its mark, Naruto's eyes widened and he accidentally gasped, "Oh, Jesus!" But he forgot that in an instant. He was going to get a hand job. This wasn't the crazy kissing back-and-forth they'd been entertaining for the last three months. He, Naruto Uzumaki, was being given a hand job by Sasuke, and by God he was going to enjoy it.

It was lucky that being killed and brought back to life as a different species didn't seem to be making any of the equipment malfunction.

Sasuke moved with the pace of someone who knew exactly what he was doing, the right combination of slow, fast and firm. His face was tense with concentration; Naruto tried to relax it with more kissing, but it was hard when he couldn't keep the desperate vocalisations from escaping his throat. It was difficult to do _anything _besides stay on his feet and accept the amazing feelings being bestowed upon him.

Finally, he felt that agonisingly familiar sensation building inside him. He tried to move Sasuke, still fully clothed, out of the way, but that only made him draw closer. The overload of body contact pushed Naruto over the edge and he peaked, breathing heavily against Sasuke's neck as he did. His knees swayed under him as the waves of relief followed. He thought fleetingly that he ought to be doing something to reciprocate the pleasure, but his own hands didn't quite seem to be working.

"Fuck," Sasuke muttered, drawing away as if electrified. "Fuck, I shouldn't have done that." Barely hearing him, the only response Naruto could give was his ragged breathing as he recovered, but Sasuke wasn't even looking at him. Then, he quickly seemed to snap back to normal. "So, was coming back here everything you thought it would be?"

Head swimming, Naruto smiled weakly, getting his balance back. "Well, considering that I gave up after realising the apartment probably wouldn't still be here, and that I almost broke my neck getting inside, I'm pretty confident in saying you're the only reason I made it back at all. Not what I expected, but I guess I can live with it."

"And yet if I hadn't bitten you, there would be no need to come back because you wouldn't have left." They stood and looked at each other reflectively. Sasuke stole one last, long glance at Naruto's body before Naruto cleaned off and clothed himself, when they noticed that Sasuke's own clothes were now in less-than-pristine condition. With no water to wash them, Naruto just offered up some of his own wardrobe as a temporary replacement. The new clothes, even in black and white, seemed too bright for Sasuke, but they would have to do.

Both exhausted, they collapsed side by side on Naruto's bed, the still-open window telling them it was now past sunset. The building began to rumble with the sounds of tenants returning home from work.

Bleary-eyed, Naruto asked a question that had been weighing on his mind. "Hey, Sasuke, why _did _you bite me?"

Sasuke frowned thoughtfully. "You might not be very satisfied with the answer to that."

"I can take it."

"If you insist … I was angry, and you were the one I took it out on. I enjoyed taking out my anger on unhappy humans so they would have just enough time to finally appreciate their lives right before dying. It was gratifying to watch them plead with the Council, saying they had so much to live for, like it was the first time they'd realised it themselves."

"That's it?" It was a long time ago, but it did sting. Naruto knew he should have next been asking why Sasuke was angry, but something else was more immediate. "You thought I was unhappy?"

"You were."

"No, that's crap. Maybe when I was sixteen, sure, but after that I was doing great and I knew it. Oh God – you were being the guy from _Saw! _I can't believe you tried to Jigsaw me!"

"I don't know what that means."

"The only reason I complain _now _is because of how grateful I was for my old life!"

"Then why did you look unhappy?" Sasuke didn't look like he had much patience for this, but Naruto didn't care.

"I didn't! I – I –"

He abruptly stopped himself as something flashed into his brain. He couldn't remember much about the night he'd been bitten, but there was a hazy recollection of something from earlier in the day: something unsettling. It had definitely weighed heavily on his mind. _Had _there been something that made him look upset enough to draw Sasuke's ire?

"I heard something," he said slowly. "Or found it. I'm not sure, but I do remember something weird happening. Maybe that was it."

A conversation at work? An ad on TV? An SMS? No, no, it was more unusual than that. It was really unexpected …

"Because it was a letter!"

Sasuke sat up and looked at him. "A letter."

"Yeah, and I never get letters!" Naruto exclaimed. "I hadn't checked my mailbox in, like, a month, but I did that morning. It was all junk, except –"

He lunged over Sasuke to the chest of drawers beside the bed and rummaged through the top compartment. The letter had been creepy enough that he'd buried it deep enough that it was hard to find, but had been too nervous to throw it out. Here it was, yellow around the edges but still intact. The message was short, unaddressed and unsigned.

_I'm coming back for you._

Yeah. Creepy. Naruto shuddered before passing it to Sasuke. "Here. Is that a good enough reason to look unhappy for one day?"

Sasuke took the letter and studied it. Naruto expected him to roll his eyes and say it was obviously some kind of joke, so it was strange how silent he remained. His eyes flickered from left to right and back again as he read the sentence repeatedly, and his expression grew more and more troubled. In fact, he looked positively shaken.

"Shit, Sasuke, it's not _that _bad."

"It's not for you."

"It – what?" Naruto asked, perplexed.

"It's not for you," said Sasuke, eyes wide with shock. "It's for me."


End file.
